Michael Fassbender – A Dangerous Method: word play as weapon

Shame star Michael Fassbender has spoken about the ‘muscular dialogue’ and word play as weaponry, which attracted him to David Cronen­berg’s lastest film A Dangerous Method.

The movie sees him pitched as Carl Jung opposite Viggo Mortensen’s Sigmund Freud as they fall into a complex love triangle with Keira Knightly as their psychiatric patient Sabina Spielrein.

The Irish-German star, currently the most in-demand lead film actor, says he immersed himself in biographies, but he lacked the time to research Jung more deeply.

With little knowledge of psychoanalysis Michael said that Jung’s complex character engaged him and the pull was ‘to tackle an eloquent, muscular piece of dialogue.’

Michael was required to make only one change to his appearance while playing Jung: he simply grew a moustache for the role and at Cronen­berg’s suggestion – agreed to dye it black.

He said: “I just came straight into this from playing Rochester in Jane Eyre. I only had two and a half weeks before this started. Still, it’s good to be under the cosh sometimes.

“You want to treat it like a piece of music, get a grasp of the rhythms. For characters like Jung and Freud, discourse was a weapon.”