Farrell, Murphy and Rhys Meyers might have company - Kerryman Michael Fassbender has arrived. The star of 300 talks to JJ O'Sheaabout bringing his theatre experience to bear on an action movie
For a man who has been celebrating his 30th birthday into the early hours, Michael Fassbender looks remarkably fit and relaxed when we meet at the Muckross Gallery in Killarney. He has more to celebrate these days than just his birthday, however - his role as a Spartan warrior in 300, the smash hit movie of the year so far, taking over $200 million (€150 million) at the US box office, seems certain to catapult Fassbender into the big league. It's all a far cry from his Kerry upbringing.
"I love to come back. I am usually able to make the trip about three times a year. It's usually only at Christmas that I can connect with all the old friends. This time was different. I was here for my birthday bash and a lot of friends and family were able to make it, which was terrific."
Fassbender, born in Heidelberg to a German father and an Irish mother, first came to national attention in a Guinness ad - you may remember him as the swimmer who crossed the Atlantic to heal a rift with a friend and raise a pint in Boston.
Last year he played Michael Collins to Mel Smith's Winston Churchill in Allegiance at the Edinburgh Festival. He has since gone on to work with many top directors including Woody Allen and François Ozon, but his acting career started at the age of 16 in much less exalted company.
"It was while I was a student at St Brendan's College in Killarney. One day I noticed a sign on the notice board offering a new activity for Wednesday afternoons. Donie Courtney was offering a comedy and drama class. I was curious so I went along. Shortly after that I ran into him on the street and I told him how much I had enjoyed the classes and he offered me some parts with [Courtney's theatre group] Bricriu. So it's really thanks to Donie and Bricriu that I got started. After St Brendan's I moved to Cork to study drama."
Treading the boards in Edinburgh and battling hoards of Persians on the big screen would, by any measure, seem to represent opposite ends of the acting experience, but Fassbender found an unusual affinity between the two. 300's stylised look was achieved by extensive digital animation - most of the sets were created by computer. This lead to an unusual working environment.
"My training for the theatre was very useful. When you are working live in the theatre you may be looking out over an audience but you are imagining another environment. On the set of 300 the actors, very often working up to 16 hours a day, were surrounded by a giant blank green screen and nothing else. In our mind's eye we would project onto the screen the invading hordes of Persian soldiers or a vast landscape or extreme climate conditions - whatever was required - and take on the physicality of that. In those conditions the actors are thrown back onto the relationships and dynamics between themselves, which is exactly how it is in the theatre."
Many actors struggle to achieve a balance between the competing attractions of theatre and film. "In an ideal world I would like to bounce between the two. I think of theatre as a marathon and film as a sprint. There is a period of time set aside for rehearsal in theatre. It is a more physical experience and I love the live connection with the audience. With film there is usually little or no time for rehearsal - most rehearsal is done on your own at home and you need the discipline for that. And the camera picks up on every little inflection - you can't lie to the camera."
Fassbender is off to Romania next week working with the director Joel Schumacher on a movie called Town Creek. "Part of it is set during the rise of Nazism. Among other things it looks at the Nazi regime's interest in the occult. Schumacher is one of my favourite directors and I'm excited to be working with him - he is very generous with his advice. Working with Woody Allen [Fassbender has a cameo in Allen's upcoming Cassandra's Dream] was a learning experience, too. He gives a lot of space to the actors to find their own way into a character or through a scene. I was also impressed by the way Allen finished each working day by 4pm, which is unusual in film, so that he could spend time with his family. And you have to admire his ability to raise funding for projects that really aren't mainstream."
Another high-profile project is at the funding stage. Hunger is a proposed biopic of hunger-striker Bobby Sands, with Fassbender in the lead role.
"The director, Steve McQueen, is first and foremost an artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1999 and he has sculpted a very unusual script. In the first act we see a prison guard at home, making his way to the prison, checking under his car for bombs etc. We see life in the prison and the dirty protest. The second act is the only act in which there is dialogue. Bobby Sands reveals his plans for the hunger strike with a priest. In the final act we watch the hunger strike itself. Naturally for us in Ireland the theme has special interest but the unique way in which Steve McQueen will tell the story is something new."
So will Fassbender be able to juggle theatrical work, small-scale films and Hollywood epics? He hopes so. "Action-packed blockbusters are fun to make and to watch, especially when they are as visually creative as 300. That last shot in 300 is stunning. Like a Brueghel or Hieronymus Bosch. But it's a shame that it is easier to raise the large amounts required to make a blockbuster than it is to raise the relatively smaller amounts needed to make low-key, interesting pieces that can have a social impact."