DarkMode/LightMode
Light Mode

James McAvoy thought Michael Fassbender was American for many years

James McAvoy wrongly thought Michael Fassbender was American for many years.

The Scottish star and the 12 Years a Slave actor first crossed paths on the set of 2001 war miniseries Band of Brothers, which featured an international cast, including the likes of Damian Lewis, David Schwimmer, Tom Hardy, and Simon Pegg.

However, James has now shared that he didn’t realize that Michael actually hailed from Ireland the entire time.

- Advertisement -

“Ten per cent of the cast, I’m roughly valuing, (experts at film website) IMDb can prove me wrong if they like, were American. The rest were all like myself, playing smaller parts. So, I met Scottish, English, Irish, a lot of Australians,” he said during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday night (15Jan19). “But I didn’t know this and I came in maybe four months in and it had all been established. So, anybody who had a good American accent, I just assumed was American. So, my good friend and in later years colleague, Michael Fassbender had an incredible American accent and for years I just thought he was that really nice American dude.”

However, James finally noticed that Michael actually had a totally different accent in a chance encounter a few years back, before they worked on 2011’s X-Men: First Class together.

“He pulls up on his motorbike while I’m on my scooter – he’s always cooler – at the traffic lights years later and he’s like (with an Irish accent), ‘Yo dude, McAvoy, it’s Fassbender.’ And I was like, ‘Hey man.’ And to this day, I think he was wondering why I was slightly dazed. I don’t expect to be talked to when I’m on my scooter!” the 39-year-old laughed.

Elsewhere in the chat, James spoke about his new superhero thriller Glass, in which he portrays a man with 24 different personalities. And in order to master each portrayal, the star ended up spending a lot of time in front of the mirror.

“Typically, on a movie, if it’s a big movie, you get one weeks’ rehearsal. So, to try and rehearse 20 characters was onerous,” he smiled. “But actually, there was just a lot of rehearsing in the mirror, which I’ve not done since I was about 21… and it was kind of fun, I felt like a kid again, a little bit!”

- Advertisement -