Michael Fassbender

Crime fiction has a long, rich legacy of stories pitting one character’s allegiances against each other. Internal conflict is the engine that generates drama for criminals; torn between conscience and instinct, between right and wrong, or in the case of upcoming British import Trespass Against Us, between family and the law. Which is a long-winded way of saying that a good deal of crime thrillers boil down to “protagonist would rather not do crime, but someone else wants him to do crime, so he must.” And when Michael Fassbender’s your protagonist and Brendan Gleeson is your someone else, you’re off to a pretty strong start.

A brief personal anecdote: I had the good fortune of attending the Austin City Limits music festival in 2012, where I caught an outdoor set by Atlanta indie rock outfit the Black Lips. During the performance, I spotted an unfamiliar figure gripping a guitar onstage, a young woman who looked suspiciously similar to Rooney Mara. I’d find out the next day that she, Ryan Gosling, and Terrence Malick had come to town to slyly shoot some footage for an untitled project about the Austin local music scene. It was neat at the time, but over the past five years, I had forgotten all about it.

It sounds like a diss to say that an actor was a perfect fit for a blank, expressionless automaton, but Michael Fassbender owned his performance as synthetic robot David in Prometheus. The film remains a polarizing quantity among fans of Ridley Scott’s original, but Fassbender’s turn as the wry, faintly sinister David was a clear high point. He lent the character a small semblance of recognizable personality, but mostly dialed it back to create an unsettling, entertaining, and entirely memorable role. When the news came that Fassbender would play an android in the upcoming Alien: Covenant, many fans automatically assumed David would make a return. And while they’re not wrong, Fassbender has more circuitry hidden up his sleeve.

Had enough of those never-ending stills yet? Good news — the Alien: Covenant trailer is here, and it’s equal parts stunning and downright horrifying. Watch as a sinister particle drifts into an android’s ear, cringe as a man leans over a slowly hatching alien egg, marvel at the sweeping, beautiful landscapes of a planet we all know is full of creatures that want to kill us! Oh, and I am never, ever taking a shower again.

Another day, and oh, what’s this, another Alien: Covenant teaser image — surprise, surprise. But there are a couple of things different about this one: For starters, it’s visually sleeker and more sparse than the others, and it may very well give us our first sneak peek at Michael Fassbender’s new synthetic, Walter. Or it might just be a promotional image for Fassbender’s new solo concert series.

Star Wars is a coveted dream franchise for many actors, and with so much material out there it’s almost a surprise we haven’t had all of our favorite stars popping up at least once in each movie. Even back in the ’70s a ton of actors were considered for Han, Luke, and Leia before George Lucas settled on his two leads. Forty years later, nothing has changed, and there’s a slew of actors who were so close to getting a part in the new trilogy before scheduling conflicts got in the way. As it turns out, we can now add Michael Fassbender to that list.

The assassins of Assassin’s Creed have an assassin's creed that they recite repeatedly in Assassin’s Creed. (If that mere fact alone makes you smile, you’re in for a treat.) This creed involves the phrases like “nothing is true” and “everything is permitted” (the assassins are the good guys in this movie, by the way) and concludes with the declaration "We operate in the darkness to preserve the light."

BREAKING NEWS: After spending a bunch of money on a blockbuster motion picture, a Hollywood studio would like to turn that movie into its own franchise. This will come as quite a shock to the one person on the internet who is both familiar enough with the Assassin’s Creed franchise to get excited for the movie adaptation but who honestly believed that 20th Century Fox was taking a one-and-done approach with the film.

An interesting rumor surfaced over the summer, suggesting that Michael Fassbender is playing not one, but two droid roles in Alien: Covenant — the dangerously mischievous synthetic David from Prometheus, and a new and somewhat improved iteration known as Walter. Those dual roles have been confirmed, with the actor himself offering a few details about his intriguing new robot character.

There are three things you have to know in order to be a good Assassin: how to tell who your enemies are, how to throw a dagger, and how to jump off of things. In this new clip from Assassin’s Creed, Michael Fassbender’s Callum Lynch/Aguilar knows his enemy (it’s easy to tell when they’re aiming a crossbow at you), throws a ton of daggers with deadly accuracy, and takes one death-defying leap of faith.