Michael Fassbender Likes a Blend of Commercial & Art Films, Digs Wearing a Mask in Frank

"I feel very lucky that I can actually be involved in commercial films as well as small ones."

Michael Fassbender has chosen a mix of large scale event films and smaller, more character-driven fare throughout the course of his career; and that trend has remained the same, even as his star has risen. The actor is busy working on his adaptation of Assassin's Creed, which he will both star in and produce, and will head into production on X-Men: Apocalypse in the not too distant future.

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In the interim, Fassbender's off-beat dramedy Frank is set to open in U.S. theaters this weekend, while it was released in the UK and much of Europe in May. We recently had the opportunity to speak with the actor about his turn as a papier-mâché mask-wearing musician, as well as striking a balance between art and commerce.

Fassbender plays the titular character in the film, a man of great talent and an equal number of eccentricities. Compelled to wear a mask at all times, Frank is loosley inspired by musician/comedian Chris Sievey and his creation/alter-ego Frank Sidebottom.

"The only thing that we really took from Frank Sidebottom was the head -- and a bit of an anarchic streak, perhaps," Fassbender said of the film's divergence from its source of inspiration. "The rest is totally fresh, really. There was more of [outsider musician] Daniel Johnston in Frank than Sidebottom was."

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The film follows Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a young man with dreams of songwriting genius and rockstardom, who through a series of strange events finds himself playing keyboards in a band called "Soronprfbs" led by the title character Frank. The motley crew quickly moves to Ireland to painstakingly, and over a long period of time, record an album. While there, Jon decides to make it his personal mission to propel the band to the mainstream via posting videos of their rehearsals on YouTube and arranging for them to play the South by Southwest festival.

Take a look at Fassbender and the cast performing a song from the film on The Colbert Report.

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In some ways, Frank and the band are singularly focused on art for its own sake, as their music typically isn't all that accessible, but via Jon's push, Frank gets caught up in a very modern social-media driven drive toward "fame".

"I felt like there is an ego there inside Frank," Fassbender reflected of the changes his character goes through, and how he is swept away by the idea of reaching a wider audience. "Also, it's just that he gets caught up in the excitement of it all [the festival, people watching them on YouTube] and the mission of it all and the idea that their work is a really important thing. It comes from Domhnall's character Jon, who believes that their music is such a momentous and groundbreaking achievement. The very idea of YouTube is something that Frank wasn't aware of, or hits on the Internet. So it's a whole new world. I think he's kind of like a sponge; he sucks up other people's excitement. Domhnall's character is such an ambitious character. Frank is not ambitious but he is talented, and Jon is ambitious but without talent. I think he just sort of almost takes on Jon's outlook. He's sort of swayed by him. In a way, there's a very 'wanting to please' element about the character, and then a very standalone element to him. So I played it way. He gets caught up in Jon's enthusiasm and his need to be validated."

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Fassbender, & Gleeson in Frank.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Fassbender, & Gleeson in Frank.

There is an inherent exploration of the value of creating work free of ego or the expectation of financial gain versus art that is designed with the expectation that it will make a profit and yield notoriety.

"This is a group doing it for the sake of loving to play music, regardless if anybody hears them or not," Fassbender said. "Then you have the wily, opposite side of that through Domhnall's character. I think what it says is, 'Sometimes you best maybe just leave things as they are.' Trying to change people or what they do or what they are never really works."

For his part, Fassbender feels that a healthy balance is key.

"I feel very lucky that I can actually be involved in commercial films as well as small ones," the actor said. "I absolutely like to do both. I've no concerns about selling out in terms of creating art or creating something that's more commercial. That's not a dilemma for me at all. I did enjoy the idea of getting into a head and playing a character in a mask, for sure. Mask-wearing and acting and performance, in theater particularly, has been around for thousands of years. So it is an old technique, and it is part of the craft. That alone I thought was an interesting opportunity for me, to explore that world. I'd done a little bit of it at drama school, the idea of taking a mask and forming a character from the outside in as opposed to the inside out. Yeah, all those things I thought to be an interesting challenge and fun, but mainly I just read the script and thought, 'This is -- what is this?' [Laughs] I was just laughing out loud at sections. Then there were other points where I was really quite touched. I found the idea of this man struggling with his mental health to be deeply touching and poignant. So there was just so much in the script. And then [director] Lenny Abrahamson...I'd seen Lenny's work. I was a big fan of his storytelling, so it was just an easy choice, to be honest."

Frank opens in the U.S. on August 16.


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