Quick Facts
Born:
April 2, 1977, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany [now Germany] (age 48)
Notable Family Members:
spouse Alicia Vikander
Married To:
Alicia Vikander (2017–present)
Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):
"Song to Song" (2017)
"Jonah Hex" (2010)
"The Counselor" (2013)
"NCS Manhunt" (2002)
"300" (2006)
"Inglourious Basterds" (2009)
"Prometheus" (2012)
"Steve Jobs" (2015)
"12 Years a Slave" (2013)
"Alien: Covenant" (2017)
"Hex" (2004–2005)
"Hearts and Bones" (2001)
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" (2014)
"Trespass Against Us" (2016)
"Band of Brothers" (2001)
"X-Men: Apocalypse" (2016)
"Holby City" (2002)
"Shame" (2011)
"Poirot" (2005)
"William and Mary" (2005)
"A Dangerous Method" (2011)
"Jane Eyre" (2011)
"Assassin's Creed" (2016)
"The Devil's Whore" (2008)
"Dark Phoenix" (2019)
"Haywire" (2011)
"Frank" (2014)
"Slow West" (2015)
"Fish Tank" (2009)
"Trial & Retribution" (2006–2007)
"Murphy's Law" (2005)
"Eden Lake" (2008)
"Blood Creek" (2009)
"The Light Between Oceans" (2016)
"The Snowman" (2017)
"Centurion" (2010)
"Macbeth" (2015)
"Angel" (2007)
"Hunger" (2008)
"X: First Class" (2011)
Top Questions

Has Michael Fassbender won an Oscar?

What films has Michael Fassbender’s made with Steve McQueen?

Who is Michael Fassbender married to?

Michael Fassbender (born April 2, 1977, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany [now Germany]) is a German-Irish actor who is known for his ability to immerse himself in a wide range of roles and is especially adept at playing complex and difficult characters. Fassbender’s notable films include Inglourious Basterds (2009), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), and Steve Jobs (2015). He has also appeared in several X-Men movies.

Early years

Fassbender was born in Heidelberg, West Germany. His mother, Adele Fassbender, is from Northern Ireland, and his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. The family—which included an elder sister—moved to Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, when Michael Fassbender was two years old. His parents later bought a restaurant, and Josef Fassbender served as the chef. The younger Fassbender occasionally worked as a bartender there.

Fassbender played guitar in a heavy metal group, but at the age of 17 he became interested in acting when he was cast in a local play. He enrolled at the Drama Centre London when he was 19 but dropped out and toured with the Oxford Stage Company’s production of the play Three Sisters. He then landed a role in the popular HBO World War II miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). However, his career stalled after that, and Fassbender worked as a bartender and held other jobs to support himself.

Career

In 2005 Fassbender landed a supporting role in 300 (2006), an action drama about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae. His big break came when Steve McQueen cast him in the 2008 movie Hunger. However, McQueen was not impressed with him at first. “When he came in to audition in 2007, I thought, ‘Who is this guy?’ He almost seemed like he couldn’t be bothered,” McQueen told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. “What I didn’t know was all the rejection he had suffered. He was asked back for a second audition, and the lights went on.” In the critically acclaimed film Fassbender played Bobby Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army who goes on a fatal hunger strike while imprisoned.

Fassbender’s performance caught the attention of director Quentin Tarantino, who picked him to play British Lieut. Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds (2009). The popular film, which starred Brad Pitt, follows a group of Jewish American soldiers trained to kill Nazis in German-occupied France during World War II. The role led to more high-profile projects. In 2011 Fassbender reteamed with McQueen on Shame, a drama about sexual addiction. For his haunting performance of a man self-destructing, he won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival. His other credits that year include Jane Eyre, a film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, and X-Men: First Class, in which he played mutant antihero Erik Lensherr/Magneto.

In 2012 Fassbender starred as an android in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller Prometheus. He then reunited with McQueen for 12 Years a Slave (2013), an acclaimed docudrama about Solomon Northup, a free Black man abducted and sold into slavery. Fassbender brought an arresting intensity to his role as an unstable plantation owner obsessed with an enslaved woman (played by Lupita Nyong’o), and he earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. He received another Oscar nod for his starring role in Steve Jobs (2015), Danny Boyle’s biopic about the Apple cofounder. Also in 2015 he starred with Marion Cotillard in Macbeth. During this time, Fassbender reprised his role as Erik/Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019).

In 2016 Fassbender starred in Assassin’s Creed, an adaptation of the video game. He then reteamed with Scott on Alien: Covenant (2017), an installment in the popular sci-fi series. After playing the title character in the thriller Killer, Fassbender had a memorable turn as the coach of the hapless American Samoa football (soccer) team in Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins (both 2023). Fassbender then returned to TV in the spy drama The Agency (2024– ). Staying in the espionage genre, he costarred with Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag (2025), about married intelligence agents.

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Personal life

In 2017 Fassbender married actress Alicia Vikander, his costar in the movie The Light Between Oceans (2016). The couple has two children.

Fred Frommer
Quick Facts
In full:
Alicia Amanda Vikander
Born:
October 3, 1988, Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden (age 36)
Awards And Honors:
Academy Award (2016)
Academy Award (2016): Actress in a Supporting Role
Notable Family Members:
spouse Michael Fassbender
Married To:
Michael Fassbender (2017–present)
Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):
"Tulip Fever" (2017)
"The Light Between Oceans" (2016)
"Kronjuvelerna" (2011)
"Seventh Son" (2014)
"En decemberdröm" (2005)
"Ex Machina" (2014)
"Moomins and the Winter Wonderland" (2017)
"Birds Like Us" (2017)
"Anna Karenina" (2012)
"The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (2015)
"The Fifth Estate" (2013)
"Levande föda" (2007)
"Höök" (2008)
"Pure" (2010)
"The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance" (2019)
"Burnt" (2015)
"Submergence" (2017)
"Tomb Raider" (2018)
"Jason Bourne" (2016)
"Son of a Gun" (2014)
"The Glorias" (2020)
"The Danish Girl" (2015)
"Andra Avenyn" (2007–2008)
"Euphoria" (2017)
"Hotell" (2013)
"A Royal Affair" (2012)
"Earthquake Bird" (2019)
"Testament of Youth" (2014)

Alicia Vikander (born October 3, 1988, Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden) is a Swedish actress who is known for her versatility. She earned an Academy Award for her performance in The Danish Girl (2015).

Vikander was the daughter of stage actress Maria Fahl Vikander and Svante Vikander, a psychiatrist. Initially she studied dance at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, but injuries that required foot and back surgeries prompted her to turn to acting. She launched her career in Swedish short films and on television, most memorably in the TV drama Second Avenue (original title Andra Avenyn), in which she appeared (2007–08) as Jossan Tegebrandt Björn. Her feature film debut in Till det som är vackert (2009; Pure) resulted in a Guldbagge Award for best actress.

Vikander’s international appeal grew after her appearance as Kitty in Anna Karenina (2012), which was her first English-language movie; the Oscar-nominated Danish film En kongelig affære (2012; A Royal Affair); and The Fifth Estate (2013), a biopic about Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In 2014 she gave convincing performances in Testament of Youth, Son of a Gun, and Seventh Son, in which she portrayed a witch.

Empty movie theater and blank screen (theatre, motion pictures, cinema).
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Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

In 2015 Vikander appeared in several films, though she earned particular acclaim for her sensitive portrayal of the loving wife of an artist who undergoes male-to-female gender-reassignment surgery in The Danish Girl. The drama was loosely based on the true-life story of Danish artists Einar and Gerda Wegener and Einar’s ultimate transformation into Lili Elbe. For her work, Vikander received an Oscar for best supporting actress. In addition, she also earned praise in 2015 for her powerhouse turn as the android Ava in Ex Machina, expertly imbuing her AI character with a sense of humanity.

In 2016 Vikander had starring roles in the modern action thriller Jason Bourne and The Light Between Oceans, in which she portrayed an anguished wife forced to face the fact that the infant whom she and her husband (played by Michael Fassbender, whom Vikander married in 2017) had rescued from an adrift rowboat years earlier has a living mother who believes that her daughter perished. Vikander’s films from 2017 included Tulip Fever, in which she portrayed a young wife in 17th-century Amsterdam who becomes romantically entangled with an artist who is painting a portrait of her and her husband; Euphoria, a drama about two estranged sisters who go on a holiday together; and Submergence, Wim Wenders’s romance about a bio-mathematician and an undercover MI6 agent (played by James McAvoy). She later starred as Lara Croft in the 2018 film adaptation of the rebooted video game franchise Tomb Raider.

In 2019 Vikander lent her voice to the TV series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, a 10-episode prequel to the 1982 puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal, and she starred in the thriller Earthquake Bird, playing a translator whose friend goes missing in Japan. Vikander was among the actors portraying the title character in The Glorias (2020), Julie Taymor’s film about feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Her credits from 2021 included The Green Knight, an adventure-drama based on the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Blue Bayou, in which she was cast as the American wife of a Korean American immigrant who is facing deportation. In 2022 Vikander starred in the TV miniseries Irma Vep, an adaptation of the 1996 movie; in the dramedy, she played an American actress who agrees to appear in a TV remake of a classic French film.

Karen Sparks The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica