He gained mainstream success for playing Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto in the X-Men series, and David⁸ and Walter One in Prometheus (2012), and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017).

For his portrayal of a sex addict in Steve McQueen's drama Shame (2011), Fassbender won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and was nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA Award.

[3][8] At age two, Fassbender moved to Killarney, Ireland, where his parents were to operate the West End House, a restaurant where his father also worked as a chef.

His parents chose Killarney because they wanted their children to grow up in the countryside, in contrast to the industrial backdrop of their previous German residence.

[14][15] Fassbender's first screen role was that of Pat Christenson in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning television miniseries Band of Brothers (2001).

In the video, he plays the part of a man out with friends on a stag night who slowly transforms into a goat due to wearing a cowbell necklace.

[16] Fassbender played Jonathan Harker in a ten-part radio serialisation of Dracula produced by BBC Northern Ireland and broadcast in the Book at Bedtime series between 24 November and 5 December 2003.

[20] In addition, Fassbender produced, directed, and starred in a stage version of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs,[16] along with his production company.

[16] The drama—the first English-language effort by French director François Ozon and based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor—premiered on 17 February 2007 at the Berlin International Film Festival and on 14 March 2007 in Paris.

In 2006, Fassbender played Stelios, a young Spartan warrior, in 300, a fantasy action film directed by Zack Snyder.

He portrayed Edward Rochester in the period film Jane Eyre, featuring Mia Wasikowska in the title role, with Cary Fukunaga directing.

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.

In 2011, Fassbender starred in A Dangerous Method by director David Cronenberg, playing Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

Shame reunited him with director Steve McQueen and premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, where Fassbender won a Volpi Cup Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Brandon.

[34] 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.

In 2012, he appeared as an MI6 agent in Haywire, an action-thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh,[27] and in Ridley Scott's science fiction film Prometheus.

Reviews praised both the film's visual aesthetic design and the acting, most notably Fassbender's performance as the android David 8.

Fassbender played the title role in Ridley Scott's The Counselor, a 2013 film based on the Cormac McCarthy script.

Macbeth helmer Justin Kurzel directed, and co-star Marion Cotillard had a leading role, working with Fassbender again.

[55] In 2015, Fassbender was cast as Harry Hole (becoming the first actor ever to portray the character) in The Snowman, an adaptation of Jo Nesbø's novel, directed by Tomas Alfredson and co-starring Rebecca Ferguson and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

[56] Fassbender reprised his role as Magneto in the 2019 film Dark Phoenix, which garnered unfavorable reviews and had a commercially unsuccessful theatrical run.

Fassbender also helped produce The Kitchen, a dystopian drama for Netflix,[60] written by Daniel Kaluuya and Joe Murtagh.

[67] In 2018, he ran the full Ferrari Challenge North America schedule, winning the season opener at Daytona International Speedway and finishing fifth in the standings.

[70] The following year, he joined Proton Competition for the full 2020 European Le Mans Series, sharing a 2017 Porsche 911 RSR with Richard Lietz and Felipe Fernández Laser.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap) Fassbender holds a German passport.

[85][86] In June 2012, Fassbender told GQ magazine that he was dating American actress Nicole Beharie, with whom he had worked on the 2011 film Shame.