Michael Fassbender The Stealth Star

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/most-valuable-movie-stars.html#/all/vulture-rankings

Michael Fassbender
The Stealth Star
He’s one of our most promising actors, but middle America hasn’t gotten the memo.

Has there ever been more of a disparity between Hollywood and the rest of the country than when it comes to Michael Fassbender? Inside Hollywood, actors and directors are clamoring to work with the talented Irish-German star, and he’s got a sky-high studio score on par with Ryan Gosling and Matt Damon. And yet, if you try to explain who Fassbender is to your uncle, you’re going to have some trouble. Despite memorable co-leads in Prometheus and X-Men: First Class, and a 2011 awards season where George Clooney and friends made constant jokes about Fassbender’s full-frontal nudity in the buzzed-about indie drama Shame, Fassbender has the lowest awareness level of anyone on this Most Valuable Stars list. According to E-Score, only nine out of every hundred people surveyed about celebrities could name Fassbender. (Though there’s one silver lining: Of the people who knew him, he scored very favorably on likability.)

Can that awareness gap change in an era during which it’s gotten harder and harder for new stars to break through? Fassbender will probably get a bump from this fall’s awards juggernaut 12 Years a Slave, for which he’s tipped to earn his first Oscar nomination as a ruthless slave owner (a role akin to the Ralph Fiennes part in Schindler’s List, which also earned Fiennes an Oscar nod). But will that help people learn his name after three of Fassbender’s giant blockbusters — Prometheus, X-Men, and Inglourious Basterds — already failed to do the job? Fassy’s also bolstered by an ensemble full of A-listers in this fall’s The Counselor, and he’ll get an assist from every X-Men star who ever lived in next summer’s megabudget X-Men: Days of Future Past, but if those don’t coax people to finally learn his name, more’s the pity: He’ll simply have to remain Hollywood’s best-kept secret.