Michael Fassbender gave an interview to The Daily Beast this week. I think they probably caught up with him in Palm Springs (where Fassy picked up an award) and they just fleshed out a quickie interview into something bigger, about his chance at an Oscar nomination. Fassy does seem to playing “the game” a little bit more this time around. He hasn’t gone Full DiCaprio or anything, but he’s been more genial to the press and he’s made more appearances on behalf of Steve Jobs than he ever did for 12 Years a Slave. Fassbender chats about Steve Jobs’ legacy, and he even talks a little bit about how the film bombed in a big way.
Fassy talks about licking things: “When the Macintosh first came out, people were like, wow it’s great but it’s a toy I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s funny that it was the first evolution of what would later become the iMac, the computers that were candy colored. You almost wanted to lick them or eat them. Now we live in a world where people take their laptops into bed with them and keep their phones beside their beds and have phones in their hands most of the day. It’s almost like another limb. It went beyond a functionary thing. We’ve developed relationships with these devices. For me, I thought that was extraordinary.”
Why ‘Steve Jobs’ wasn’t a box office success: “I think the landscape of how we watch films as adults has changed… I think that’s evident in films that are at cinemas, mainstream-wise. Where the demographic are teenagers, teenage boys, and that’s the reality of the landscape. So that would be my guess.”
Steve Jobs’ legacy: “I think the legacy is all around us. He did change the world. I think when you change the world you leave yourself open to our story being told. He himself commissioned someone to write an autobiography about him, so obviously he wanted the world to tell his story. Outside of that, I don’t know what Steve Jobs was like. I never met the man. I never spent time with him. The only impression I had was from the media and what people said about him. But like I say, the legacy is the legacy, and that is something you can’t argue with. Because we’re all living it.”
How Fassy doesn’t look a thing like Steve Jobs: “It’s actually something I said myself to Danny when he approached me with the role. I said, ‘I don’t really look anything like the man.’ He said, ‘I’m not really interested in that. I don’t want to do an imitation.’”
I thought he handled that question really well, when he was asked directly about how the film bombed. And it did bomb. And some people put all of the blame on Fassbender, like he was “miscast” and that’s why the film did poorly. I saw the film in theaters, and I thought it was okay, but sure, he was miscast. Maybe he got the soul of Steve Jobs or maybe he just did a good job with the Aaron Sorkin dialogue, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone else probably should have played that role. Fassy does say that he thinks people will find the film on Netflix or whatever, and I think that may be the case too.
Anyway, we’re almost a week away from the Oscar nominations announcement. I think Fassy will definitely get a nomination, but I really don’t see him winning any of the big awards this year.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
They also need to stop releasing all the year’s big films at the same time
You can blame Harvey for that.
The awards season are a cheap marketing tool for his films.
Other studios have caught on, and now we have all the films released as late as possible within the award deadline dates, and all the block busters released to coincide with school holiday dates.
And this year, it backfired on all of them with a huge number of films being released in that narrow period of time and most of them flopping. As Fassbender says, people approach seeing movies differently now. They also have limited time to go to the movies so when they do, they’re going to seek out a sure thing that will lose something on a smaller screen. That’s why The Martian did so well. Grand Budapest Hotel proved a Msrch release does not preclude a best picture nod. A quieter film like Steve Jobs would have fared better with a spring release on a less crowded weekend
Agreed. There were several movies this fall that didn’t interest me enough to compete with everything else out there, but that I would have at least considered seeing in the spring when there tends to be little of quality in the theaters.
To be honest, as much as I’m an Apple person, I wouldn’t spend $16 on a ticket to see it in the theater. It’s not a film you *need* to see on a big screen.
But I did watch it on a screener, at home, in front of the fireplace, and that was the perfect setting! Lol. It/he was good, but not Oscar-worthy, in my opinion.
You do have a good point that television puts up a lot of competition these days, especially for more serious fare that doesn’t need to be seen on a big screen to look good.
Still, I do go to maybe 10 or 15 movies a year. I’d see Jobs at a matinee or if I were on a date and it seemed like the best option. If movie prices were $16 where I lived, that would be a different story, though!
He’s capable of putting his foot in his mouth, but yeah, he handled those questions well. Sometimes it’s better to acknowledge that your movie wasn’t successful, and he did it in a way that acknowledged that movie watching has changed but without being overly blaming toward the audience. He was also pretty straightforward about not looking much like Jobs, which I think was the right way to play that.
I don’t think the flop was Fassbender’s fault, either. I didn’t see the movie because I know more or less everything about Jobs’s life from TV and internet coverage of his death. I suspect a lot of other people felt the same.
It’s a great performance and I kind of want to see him win because he is so laid back. It’s a nice contrast to wear’em down, begging for it Leo.
It is an excellent performance without the distractions of physical transformation or bear rapes
heh 😏
The Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks did well, as did Spotlight. There are movies that adults are going to and supporting.
I take that back. Spotlight’s numbers aren’t that great considering the rave reviews by movie-goers and critics. I’m stunned. It’s brilliant. Once it wins Best Movie of the Year, I expect it to get a second life.
I think it’s better if films like those targeted at adults are released in small theaters for the audience to find it. Steve Jobs was doing well initially then they made the mistake of releasing it in too many theaters too soon.
Once it hits Netflix and iTunes, it will do well. Again, released at a time when there’s too much demanding movie goers attention
Maybe people just aren’t interested in seeing a movie about Steve Jobs — that’s what I think. We like our MacBooks, but I don’t know how many people like the man.
I actually agree with you. I got more interested after the reviews came out because it actualy sounds like a theatre piece, and I’m a theatre geek, but it wasn’t a film I needed to see in the cinema.
Same here. I like Fassbender and it’s the only reason I went to see it in the cinema. He was brilliant in it but I doubt he’ll get any awards for it, it’s Leo’s year. Macbeth and was amazing – acting, cinematography, score – everything was perfect. Unfortunately, it got no promotion whatsoever.
I said it before – I felt Fassy didn’t promote it enough, at least in the US. Yes, general public was not excited about it going into it already but Fassy did nothing to change that perception.
Marketing campaign fail all the way, for the studio, the director and Fassy.
I think he did a fair share of marketing in the fall but then he was stuck making Assassin’s Creed – hard to blame him for not campaining when he was busy working.
Then it was a conscious decision on his part not to market it. Or maybe they thought the movie was going to sell itself and wouldn’t need much promotion.
The sentiment towards the movie was quite negative and it looks like they didn’t realize it until it was too late.
There was no marketing for Macbeth either. For this reason I am starting to think it is his choice not to get involved in marketing. It will backfire.
I haven’t seen it because it hasn’t premiered yet where I live. But I will definitely go see it as soon as it does! That’s much more due to Fassy and his acting than any interest in Steve Jobs the person though…
I have no interest in watching that film even when it comes to Netflix. He is filming assassins creed – it will most likely suck and probably bomb too.
I went to see it because fassbender makes nearly every role he plays so watchable. He was very good in it, in my opinion. An ass as well as deeply sympathetic all at once. I thought the dialogue/screenplay was captivating. I WAS upset by winslet. She generally knocks it out of the park, but her accent work in this film was all over the place. :/
I only went to see SJ because of him, and I thought he was great. I would like to see him win for it, but Leo is pushing the narrative that it’s “his year,” that he will finally get “his Oscar.” Fassbender’s only narrative is that he’s a great actor.
I would agree with you that he is good, but I don’t think he is good enough or well-enough known to just film movies and believe his talent alone is promotion. He’s not a Daniel Day-Lewis can-do-no-wrong type. Someone keeps mentioning if you stopped 50 random people and asked if they knew who he was, how many would know. I don’t know if it is arrogance or delusion for him to make a bunch of movies and think he doesn’t have to do much press. I only saw one major interview with him (on Fallon, where he talked about getting tipped as an alter boy) and I don’t even remember the movie. Part of the fault is his for not promoting his movies more, plain and simple. If he expects people to see his movies, he needs to do more interviews that a larger portion of the population will see, not appear in every third movie that comes out. Or he can be okay with movies he is in being aimed at a much smaller audience and realize he will never get the recognition he seems to feel entitled to.
I am of two minds -I am glad VOD is out there, otherwise there are so many movies I would totally miss out on. For starters, Spotlight was in my city(200,000 plus) for maybe 10 days the beginning of Dec- yup, nothing going on then! So missed that, missed Room, and barely got to see The Danish Girl. And I loved seeing DG in a theater-it was beautifully shot, the costumes were stunning, as were the landscapes. So I still want the theater experience, even as that becomes ever harder to do.
OT- anyone know the story on the Jack in The Danish Girl? Such an amazing pooch-it’s like Uggie has been cloned!!
For as “miscast” as you say he was, he sure is getting a lot of nominations for this role. People who are miscast don’t get nominated for best actor for anything.
And I don’t mean The Golden Globes and Oscars because those to me are a joke. I mostly mean critics awards and film festival type awards.
Michael was amazing in the role of Jobs. By the third act I had forgotten that was Michael Fassbender on screen. He was Steve Jobs…