Background
Fassbender was born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany (now Germany). His mother is from Larne, County Antrim in Northern Ireland, and his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender's "family lore", his mother is the great-great-niece of Michael Collins, an Irish leader during the War of Independence. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Killarney, County Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland, where they ran the West End House, a restaurant where his father worked as a chef. Fassbender was brought up as a Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy.
Career
Fassbender first played the part of Burton "Pat" Christenson in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning television miniseries Band of Brothers. He played the character of Azazeal in both series of Hex on Sky One and he also starred as the main character in the music video for the song "Blind Pilots", by the British band The Cooper Temple Clause. In the video, he plays the part of a man on a stag night with his friends, only to slowly transform into a goat due to wearing a cowbell necklace.
In 2006, Fassbender played the role of Stelios, a young Spartan warrior, in 300, a fantasy action film directed by Zack Snyder. The film was a commercial success.
Fassbender portrayed Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class, the prequel to X-Men. Set in 1962, it focuses on the friendship between Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) and Magneto and the origin of their groups, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. The film was released on 3 June 2011 to general acclaim and financial success and promoted Fassbender to being more of a popular movie star.
Shifting between British films and American films, Fassbender resides in London, England where he has lived for the last 15 years, while making career-related visits to Los Angeles, California.
He speaks conversational German, though he has stated that he needed to brush up a bit on his spoken German before filming Inglourious Basterds, as it was a bit rusty. He has also expressed interest in performing in a German-language film or theater production one day.
For his role in Shame, he won the Volpi Cup best-actor award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival held in August 2011.
Fassbender was a serious contender for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but he was not nominated, and according to various sources his full-frontal nudity and depiction of sexual encounters inspired voters "to fantasize, and not actually vote." Fassbender achieved critical acclaim for his performance in Shame and received nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
He is perhaps best-known for having played Lt. Archie Hicox in the war film Inglourious Basterds (2009), directed by Quentin Tarantino; and Magneto in the superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011).