Michael Fassbender and BJ Novak are
Inglourious Basterds, one is recruited by Mike Myers while the other is by Brad Pitt in the WWII epic that comes out this Friday, August 21st.
Fassbender plays movie critic and British Lieutenant Archie Hicox, who receives orders from Gen. Ed Fenech played by Mike Myers to be dropped in to France to meet up with Diane Kruger’s Bridget von Hammersmark and Brad Pitt’s Basterds at bar and take down the Third Reich. In real life Fassbender is of German and Irish descent, but in the movie he plays a British guy and he told us at
The Weinstein Company’s roundtable for IB that this wasn’t the role he was hoping for.
I was trying to get Christoph Waltz’s part, Landa. I was really running after that part. My agent, I think he terrorized Quentin to see me, kept talking about Landa. I really put my eggs in one basket. Every night I came home and put in five hours on Landa. I got French lessons, and I did about 27 hours on Landa’s character. Then I flew out to Berlin, then he [Quentin] goes, “Okay, let’s take a look at Hicox!†I was like, “Can we take a look at Landa also?†[laughs] He said, “No, I cast my Landa on Tuesday.†So I read the Hicox part pretty much cold. I thought I made a real bulls of everything. I remember I was terribly depressed that night. Then a week later, they called me up and offered me the job.
A big reason why he was probably so down is because he is a huge fan of QT’s, so working with him was something he has wanted to do since he was at least in his late teens.
When I was like 18, I got my fiends together and we put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in my local nightclub, so to actually get to work with him was a dream come true. Once I got beyond that, it is fascinating to watch the man work because he does really works in his own, unique way. He is so knowledgeable in film. He does his craft by absorbing all the information. He is an encyclopedia.
While QT might be an encyclopedia, as we know his movies does not follow what that big book has listed om how WWII ended and Fassbender told us he likes the changes.
Q: Being of German descent, what is it like being in a movie about World War II and Nazis?
MF: I thought it was pretty cool. I like Quentin because he won’t be restrained by the confines of history. We have seen this topic done so many times. I was like, “World War II her we go again.†This is maybe the film to end World War II films.
With all the recent WWII films that have been out there in the last few years, I kind of hope he is right. And IB is the definitely the movie to do it, not only because it changes history because it is just that monumental.
Fassbender is one of the few actors in the movie, who has worked on other WWII movies and here is what he told us was different than other movies based on the era.
I love the fact that French people are speaking French, German people are speaking German. I always thought that was weird when there are German people speaking English with German accents [speaking with thick German accent]. It is always like, “Well, why are they doing that?†It kind of burst the bubble of illusion immediately. I think it is great.
Personally I hate movies with subtitles, but with this one you forget when you are reading the screen and when you are listening to them to talk it is just that smooth of a transition.
Now back to Michael Fassbender when he is on the screen you just can’t take your eyes off of him and yes in person too. He just has that quality and the way he plays Lieutenant Archie Hicox is just so brilliant you just believe his character. He holds his own when he has his scene with Mike Myers and also in the infamous bar scene. A scene he told us took two weeks to film, and one you have to watch play out because it changes everything in the movie.
Next up for the hot actor is Jonah Hex, and I am going to see just because of him after his genius portrayal in Inglourious Basterds.
BJ Novak plays one of Brad Pitt’s Basterds, Smithson Utivich aka The Little Man. Although his nickname may have little in it, he has a huge part at the ending of the movie. Something The Office star told us, he liked about Quentin Tarantino’s direction.
Well, first of all, not to give anything away, but one cool thing about the character that Quentin had always told me he had conceptualized for it was that he was frustrated with war movies where it’s very clear who’s going to live and who’s going to die. He wanted to play with audience expectations and focus on some people and kill them off and hide some people and have them emerge. He always thought it would be very funny to have the guy who’s supposed to get killed first make it to the end. I think that was where the surprise and the fun of Utivitch surviving for so long comes from.
I am not going to tell you if he lives or dies, but I will tell you he scalps a lot of heads for Brad Pitt. And he told us that they had to prep for that duty especially when one is not a fan of violent movies.
I thought I would hate it. I’m really not a fan of violence in movies. What I’ve always loved about Tarantino is the humor and the dialog and the characters. I don’t exactly cover my eyes to the violence but that’s not what I buy a ticket to see. So it was kind of odd to find myself in that part of a Tarantino movie, but that was my job and that was my homework. I had scalping lessons, I looked up scalping on the internet and after a while, it just became like a calculus test I wanted to get an A on. I hated calculus, too, but I was a good Jewish boy who did my homework and that’s who Utivitch was. I don’t think he wanted to scalp, but if that’s his homework assignment from Aldo, he’s damned if he’s not going to get an A. That’s how I approached it on the set.
To be honest IB is not that violent at all minus a few short scenes, so hopefully it wasn’t too bad for him to watch on the big screen. On that note the big screen works well for The Little Man or the name he thought suited him better The Medium Sized Man. Find out on Friday if the little guy who could makes it to the Inglourious Basterds credits.
