by Jim Maloney
In between his hectic film schedule Michael found time to voice the main character of Logan in the third video game in the Fable series of role-playing adventures in which the player/character struggles to overthrow the King of Albion by forming alliances and building support for a revolution. Fable III was set 50 years on from the previous instalment, with the monarch’s son, Logan, now ruling the Kingdom of Albion. The game included a star cast of voice talents including Ben Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, Zoe Wanamaker and John Cleese. It was released on 29 October 2010.
In the mean time Michael, who had made a name for himself from a string of interesting independent films that had won him acclaim and awards, was now being offered big studio pictures. And the one he settled on was to reach a huge worldwide audience and fully establish him as a star.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AN X-CELLENT MOVE
Although Michael was more of a Beano and Dandy reader as a boy than a fan of superhero comics, he did think he was Superman and had fantasised over Wonder Woman, so maybe his next choice wasn’t so unusual. As worldwide movie franchises went they didn’t come much bigger than this. The four previous X-Men movies – X-Men, X-2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-MenOrigins: Wolverine – had been hugely successful and he had enjoyed watching them.
The stories were set in a world of ordinary humans and mutants with strong and strange special powers, which are feared by the rest of the citizens. When a US senator hounds the mutants and wants them to register with the government in order to protect others, it causes friction and resentment. Several mutants find solace at Professor Charles Xavier’s school, which teaches them how to harness their special powers. And so we have the likes of Jean Grey, who has telekinetic and telepathic skills, Storm, who can manipulate weather disturbances, Cyclops, whose eyes release energy blasts, and Wolverine, who has healing powers. But danger looms when fellow mutant Magneto, who can control magnetic fields that manipulate metal, concocts a plan to turn the world’s leaders into mutants at a special UN gathering. Xavier forms a crack team of mutants called The X-Men to fight Magneto and his fellow rebels.
Michael liked that the stories were grounded on such enduring social and psychological issues as ostracism, conflict, fear and resentment. He was impressed by the script for the new movie, X-Men: First Class, which was a prequel explaining how Magneto and Xavier first met and became friends before falling out. He immersed himself in reading X-Men comic-book stories and thought that there was more depth and characterisation to them than many others of the genre.
He was also a fan of the movie’s British director Matthew Vaughn, who had previously directed the superhero comedy Kick-Ass. He was also aware of the benefits of a blockbuster movie reaching a wide audience, raising his profile and giving him more control over his career. ‘I’ve been around for a while and I’ve had to graft to get to the position I’m in, and I wouldn’t change a bit of that. If it’s a success, it allots me more power, which allows me to control my own career more,’ he said.
The story for X-Men: First Class was described by Vaughn as ‘X–Men meets the Cuban missile crisis meets James Bond.’ It begins at a German concentration camp in Poland during World War II when young Erik Lensherr is separated from his parents by Nazi guards. In his frustration and anger he bends a metal gate without touching it, using magnetic power. Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw, who has observed this through a window, calls Erik up to see him. Placing a metal coin on a desk, he orders him to use his power to move it. When Erik cannot, Shaw shoots and kills his mother in front of him. His rage sends his power out of control, wrecking the room and killing two guards. A delighted Shaw is determined to harness the boy’s power.
The story then jumps to 1962 when Erik is still trying to track down Shaw to get his revenge. When a banker refuses to help, Erik shows just how ruthless he has become, by using his mind’s power to rip a metal filling from the terrified man’s mouth. It gets him talking and Erik manages to trace a bar of gold to Shaw’s address in Argentina. Meanwhile, Shaw and a bunch of mutants with trained super powers are planning to start a world war. CIA agent Moira MacTaggart seeks the help of Oxford University graduate Charles Xavier, who is publishing his thesis on mutation.
The telepathic and telekinetic Xavier uses his power to discover that Shaw – who is a mutant himself – wants to manipulate the Cuban missile crisis to start a nuclear war between the US and Russia in order to wipe out all normal humans. Xavier then starts to train a team of mutants at his mansion home, turning them into an elite fighting force to stop them. In one spectacular scene, Erik raises a nuclear submarine out of the sea using his magnetic mind control.
Towards the end of the movie, an increasingly dangerous Erik admits that he agrees with Shaw that the only way for mutants to live a hassle-free life is to destroy humans. From now on he will be known as Magneto. We then see him wearing a cool-looking helmet to underline his new alter ego, which sets things up nicely for the next movie in the series or, as Michael mischievously put it, ‘I’ve got the purple helmet and I’m ready for action.’
Michael was cast as Lensherr/Magneto in the role previously played by Sir Ian McKellen, while James McAvoy, with whom Michael had worked on Band of Brothers and who had gone on to star in Atonement and The Last King of Scotland, took Patrick Stewart’s place as a young Xavier. Michael initially looked to base his portrayal on McKellen as a younger man but Vaughn wasn’t keen on the idea so he delved into the comic books and found a wealth of material to draw on. ‘Erik speaks German, goes to a concentration camp in Poland, ends up in Eastern Europe and then goes off to Israel. There’s so much there and I tried to approach it freshly from the source material,’ he explained. ‘I wanted to show there is a massive well of history in this character. He is a very damaged individual.’
Michael was much more intrigued by this aspect of Erik than he was by his super power and he liked the idea of the blurring of the line between villain and hero. ‘That’s way more interesting than just some guy, some baddie, who breezes though an action film. It adds a whole new dimension to the idea of a villain,’ he said. And he found that he shared some of Erik’s views on society and was aware of the resonance that the film’s message had today.
‘It was very clear to me what Magneto’s opinions were in terms of how much humanity can be trusted,’ he said. ‘And listen, I love people, I believe we all need each other, that’s the essential thing for me in life. In the world it gets lost nowadays when people are all about the “I” – how can I become successful? How can I get ahead? We’re obsessed about the individual as opposed to working together. And it does seem to be a human trait that, when we see something we’re afraid of, we try to destroy it rather than understand it.’
Michael was impressed by the sophistication of the X-Men comic-book stories. ‘You can have a fantastical world around it but at the core there’s the really interesting topic of racism and prejudice and people feeling like outsiders,’ he told the Sunday Times. ‘You’ve got the civil-rights movement at the time we set this film in. You’ve got all these elements of racism and prejudice and fear of the unknown, and the fear of something within and how society reacts to those things.’
Alongside Michael in the cast were Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, January Jones as Emma Frost, Jason Flemyng as the demonic Azazel, Lucas Till as Havoc and Zoë Kravitz as Wings. Most of them, including Michael, were signed up for two further X-Men films.
Michael enjoyed the experience of working with Matthew Vaughn. ‘He’s great because he makes films as a fan,’ he told Total Film. ‘There’s something like a nine-year-old boy in him when he’s making a film. He allows the characters to drive the plot and the plot to drive the action, as opposed to action driving the film and threading in some sort of a plot.’
Michael tried to take the edge off his Irish accent but Matthew told him not to, explaining that the reason that Sean Connery was the best James Bond was that he had a quirk to his accent a
nd it wasn’t straight English. ‘I was like, “Great! I can make Magneto Irish!”’ Michael joked with the Irish Voice. ‘He was in hiding in Cork or Kerry for a couple of years after the war. That’s where we sort of went with it.’
The film’s scriptwriter, Simon Kinberg, thought Michael perfectly captured the almost dual personality of Eric Lehnsherr and his conflicting emotions. ‘Because Michael is such an interesting actor, he’ll never be “full-on” anything. He’ll have a villainous side and he’ll have a sympathetic human side you’ll be able to relate to but you’ll also be afraid of him.’
Having read all the X-Men stories, Michael thought that the relationship between Magneto and Xavier was fascinating. He likened it to two great political leaders, who are enemies but able to sit down and have lunch together and be very amiable towards each other.
Prior to casting, Michael screentested with James McAvoy and the two found they had a great rapport. As James recalled, ‘It was very important that the actors playing Xavier and Magneto, who are at the emotional core of the story, got on together and, when we met up, we hit it off and I think we both thought, “Please, God, let it be us two.” We share a similar sense of humour and we knew we could push things a bit and not get too serious. We had a great old time.’
They did that. In fact, some of their high jinks were a cause of concern to the director once filming began at Pinewood Studios. One of their favourite games during breaks was to race to a golf buggy that was used for transporting cast to and fro. Michael usually beat James to it but one day James got there first and took the wheel as Michael jumped in the back. Despite it only going at 12mph, James lost control as they drove into a caravan park and crashed into a Lexus car. James tumbled out and Michael went flying over the back seat, banged his head on the steering wheel and ended up in the driver’s seat and so got the blame!
A dazed James, who had flown 10 feet, stood up and looked at Michael in the driving seat, laughing madly. As some of the crew gathered around, shaking their heads, Michael simply ran off. James proved to be unhurt but Michael cut his left shin, which has left him with a permanent scar. ‘It’s my little memento!’ he said, laughing.
There were many times when they joked that playing superheroes and villains seemed an odd thing for grown men to do but, in truth, James greatly admired the way Michael brought gravitas to his role. ‘No matter how much at times we were thinking, “This is silly as shit,” Michael’s got the ability and the presence of mind and the intelligence to be able to elevate it,’ he said, ‘and that was immediately evident from the first moment we sat down and started talking. I think he’s really at home with who he is and that’s not something that every actor has. He has self-possession in bucketloads and that lends itself to screen presence. While he’s on screen, he is in command. He is him.’
On a more relaxed level, Jason Flemyng, who had starred in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, both produced by Matthew Vaughn, invited the cast to his place for dinner. Michael, no mean cook himself, having helped his chef father at the family restaurant, was impressed with the slow-roasted pork belly Jason served up. ‘It was excellent,’ he recalled. ‘I was supposed to reciprocate but never did.’
During the making of the film, Michael began a romance with one of his co-stars, 22-year-old Zoe Kravitz – the daughter of singer and musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet – who played Angel Salvadore. But, intensely private as ever, he refused to confirm or deny it when asked by reporters. ‘My private life is private,’ he told the Guardian. ‘If I do a film, how can I expect the audience to follow me if they’re thinking, “He goes out with this person” and, “He has this for breakfast”? It’s a disadvantage.’
On the subject of increased celebrity and public recognition in the streets following X-Men exposure, he was typically level headed. ‘I don’t think about it too much. I still go about doing my everyday things like I did ten years ago. I don’t want to change that. I’m in a privileged position.’
When a reporter from the Irish Examiner asked him how difficult it was to go from a small-budget art-house movie like Hunger to the blockbuster of X-Men, he referred back to his schooldays at St Brendan’s. ‘It’s not that difficult, it’s just a very different mindset you have to get into, i.e. that of a ten-year-old boy, and have fun with it and not take yourself too seriously. I used to skive off school at St Brendan’s sometimes, with a friend of mine, Ernest Johnson, and whenever I’d get nervous about it, he’d say, “What’ll it matter in a hundred years’ time?” That’s my attitude to blockbusters like this.’
But that wasn’t the only time when his past would influence the present. Earlier in the shoot he had received the promised script of Steve McQueen’s new movie. And it was a shocker.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A SHAMEFUL AFFAIR
Since his initial chat with Steve about his movie project with Abi Morgan about a sex addict, Michael had occasionally wondered what he had let himself in for after immediately saying that he wanted to be in it.
‘Obviously when he told me what the subject was about, my imagination started to do its thing, so I was prepared for compromising positions and nudity and all that but I was a bit worried that I’d perhaps bitten off more than I could chew,’ he admitted. But he trusted Steve and knew that it was an important story to tell. Also, the controversial nature of the film appealed to Michael’s sense of danger and of wanting to keep people – including himself – guessing about what he might do next. He never wanted to feel too comfortable as an actor and, with the movie’s numerous full-frontal nude scenes, he wasn’t about to be disappointed on that score.
Unusually it was to be an entirely British made film, financed by Film Four and the UK Film Council and produced by Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, who later went on to produce The King’s Speech. It was to be called Shame – the overriding feeling that sex addicts feel about their condition – but to Michael’s relief, his first thought on reading the script was how beautifully written it was. He found that he really cared about the people in the story and thought that a reflection of Steve, who, he feels, really cares about human beings.
Michael was to play the lead role of sex addict Brandon with Carey Mulligan, who had co-starred with him in Trial & Retribution (and had since featured in An Education and Drive) playing his younger sister, Sissy. Steve and Abi’s first thoughts were to set the story in London but, when they tried to speak to sex addicts as part of their research, they had a problem getting anyone to open up to them. Then Steve heard about two women in New York who had studied sex addiction and they introduced him and Abi to several people with this affliction.
‘There was one guy – his wife was a very beautiful woman but there were a thousand other people he’d rather sleep with,’ Steve recalled. ‘It’s the availability of sex. It’s like there’s more fatty food in supermarkets, so people get fat. There’s greater accessibility to alcohol, so guess what? More people get pissed. That’s how it is. Everyone wants to get lost a little bit these days – and understandably so.’
In his conversations with sex addicts, Steve noticed the word ‘shame’ kept cropping up after they had indulged themselves and he knew that he had stumbled upon the perfect title. They also had a huge feeling of self-hatred.
While they were in New York Steve decided to shoot the movie there. The story centres on Brandon – a thirty-something advertising executive who lives alone in a stylish, minimalist New York apartment. Handsome, successful and wealthy he may be but he is not in control of his life. His every move, every hour and seemingly every minute is consumed by his overwhelming obsession with sex. Each time he sees an attractive woman on the street, subway or in a bar, his head is turned and there is a leer on his face. At home and at work he accesses pornography on the Internet, hires prostitutes and picks up women – and the occasional man – in bars for instant sexual gratification. It leaves him feeling cold and unhappy but he seems unable to change or control his behaviour. Be
neath the veneer of success he is a haunted, lonely man and his life becomes even more complicated when his wayward and emotionally unstable sister, Sissy, comes to stay with him.
Steve felt certain that the people he spoke to in New York were definitely addicted to sex and that the Internet made it easier for them to find self-gratification. ‘In my day, the only access you had to pornography was the top shelf of a newsagent. Now you can click a mouse and get porn at any time of the day. So the Internet was very important in depicting the apparatus of a sex addict. Again, it is access to anything you want any time of day. Brandon is not at all exotic or a freak – he’s one of us.’
Michael also chatted to sex addicts and, although at first he was unsure about the reality of the condition, he, like Steve, was left in no doubt that it was a genuine one. ‘I didn’t really know much about it at first. The first I’d heard about sex addiction was celebrities and I suppose there’s the idea that they are spoiled and there’s a lot of choice there and that, if anybody had the chance, they would be indulging in the same way. But having spoken to people and researched it, I am without a doubt sure that it is a real condition. It’s happening and people’s lives are being devastated by it. It’s all consuming. There’s this idea of the city being twenty-four/seven and that whatever you’re into, it’s there in some form or other.’
But it was the fact that people are ashamed to talk about it as if it were any other addiction, and thus unable to get help, that fascinated Michael. ‘Initially you might laugh at the idea of sexual addiction but it becomes very serious pretty quickly when you see the devastation that it leaves in its wake. There seems to be some kind of stigma about it. It seems more acceptable to deal with alcohol or drug addiction. What’s interesting is that drugs or alcohol are outside influences that you bring in, whereas sex is within us. It’s something that’s innately there and is part of our make-up and instinct, so when that becomes imbalanced and reaches an unhealthy situation, what do you do with it? Do you totally abstain, or do you try to negotiate life?’