Michael Fassbender Interview For Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’

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Michael Fassbender Interview For Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’

PROMETHEUS Logan Marshall Green Noomi Rapace Michael Fassbender Michael Fassbender Interview For Ridley Scotts Prometheus

In the distant future, two superpowers control Earth and fight each other for all the solar system’s natural resources. When one side dispatches a team to a distant planet to terraform it for human colonization, the team discovers an indigenous race of bio-mechanoid killers. Ridley Scott, director of ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ returns to the genre he helped define. With ‘Prometheus,’ he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. ‘Prometheus’ features a stellar cast in Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, and Guy Pearce. Look out for ‘Prometheus’ in cinemas June 1st in the UK and June 8th in the US.

I believe you were speaking to Ridley Scott years before ‘Prometheus’ actually started filming, how did you get involved?

Michael Fassbender: To get the call from Ridley Scott…I think we met first in 2008, Ridley invited me to his office, he’d seen ‘Hunger’ – one of the wonderful things about Ridley is that he sees everything. He still has that passion for film out there, like ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ with Noomi Rapace, I remember he was telling me about that at the time. You get the offer and you think, “Oh my God, this is amazing, I’ve got to go home and really start working and prepare.” I really believe in preparing, preparing, preparing, preparing, so that when I come on set I can allow things to happen, but have an idea of where I’m going with it.

How was it to work on set with him, that whole process on a film of this size?

Michael Fassbender: It was a lot of fun, I was pretty nervous, on the first day I didn’t know what to expect. Then it just became like play really (laughs). Even though we were both very serious about the work, it was a joy. No idea was stupid until we tried it and put it on the floor. If it worked it worked, if it didn’t it didn’t. But what’s really impressive about Ridley Scott and watching him work, you’ve got 350 people on set, and each department has got to come and bring their top game to set. Seeing someone have involvement and instilling passion in each of those departments is pretty amazing to witness, and to have the precision in each department, and to have the imagination, enthusiasm, energy….that’s what sort of makes him the master, you know? You have to be a ringmaster, especially with something of this size, this magnitude.

michael fassbender as david in prometheus Michael Fassbender Interview For Ridley Scotts Prometheus

Being a ringmaster, then capturing moments….

Michael Fassbender: Exactly. We try and capture moments in cinema, you don’t know how they come, there really isn’t much of a formula to it. It’s just those moments in films that make films, you know? I think a lot of directors don’t even see it brewing in the atmosphere, it’s happening in the atmosphere but a lot of directors don’t even see it. Ridley is very in tune with it, it’s like, “We’ve gotta go know.” He sees something happening within the actors, that something special is about to happen. You need to be pretty in tune, then at the same time looking at the camera department, looking at the art department, hair and make-up, wardrobe, each department, having an eye on everything. That’s pretty extraordinary.

Preparing to play David, I believe you didn’t revisit the “Alien” films, you took your influences from a variety of sources?

Michael Fassbender: Right. I didn’t watch all the “Alien” films before this, I’d seen them all before, but for some reason I decided not revisit them before filming. We had some other ideas….I did watch Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ funnily enough. There was something in the replicants that I thought was interesting, especially Sean Young’s character. But in terms of the inspirations for the character of David, me and Ridley were discussing things, he wanted me to watch ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ a film called ‘The Servant’ with Dirk Bogarde, and then I watched ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ with David Bowie. I read certain things, watched certain things….when you’re reading the script, certain images or people come to mind. That’s how I approached it from there. To bring something totally different, I didn’t want to be influenced by what those guys had done in the earlier, sort of “Alien” films, you know?

Look out for a more in-depth interview with Michel Fassbender for ‘Prometheus’ closer to the films release date.