Michael Fassbender Never Blinked While on Camera Filming ‘The Killer,’ David Fincher’s DP Noticed; Director Says ‘Michael’s Eyes Betray a Lot’
David Fincher is known for doing lots of takes while filming, but Michael Fassbender upped the ante while filming “The Killer” by apparently never blinking when the camera was on him. The film’s cinematography Erik Messerschmidt revealed the detail in the latest issue of Empire Magazine. Messerschmidt previously worked with Fincher on “Mindhunter” and “Mank,” the latter of which won him the Oscar for best cinematography.
“I believe that you have to be impossible to deal with to be any good at this — you have to be completely uncompromising, to the absolute limit, or you’ll never make anything good,” Messerschmidt said of working with Fincher. “And that’s scary. I see these masters of their craft, fighting for every inch.”
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Messerschmidt called Fassbender “the perfect actor for David”, with Empire noting that he also mentioned “how the focus puller highlighted something remarkable: the actor didn’t blink on camera for the entire shoot.”
“Michael’s eyes betray a lot,” Fincher told Empire Magazine (via IGN), which might explain why he didn’t want his actor blinking in the film. “He can hold a lot of conflicting things in his mind and his eyes allow you access to it.”
Fincher said working with Fassbender reminded him of filming “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” with Daniel Craig. Both actors have a similar personal resolve that they brought to set.
“He’s like Daniel Craig in that way, saying, ‘I can do it better,'” Fincher said. “Tell him to stop one third of an inch shorter and he can fine-tune that technical stuff, while on top of that, he’s got really good ideas about behavior… He has this gift as an actor, but clamped on top of it is this incredible discipline about how he subdivides his next move.”
Based on the French graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and adapted by Fincher’s “Fight Club” screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, “The Killer” stars Fassbender as an assassin who finds himself unraveling after a job gone wrong. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard and Sophie Charlotte. The film, backed by Netflix, world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Fincher told Empire that he was attracted to the film due to the character’s personality, which is cold and methodical.
“I thought the character’s nihilism was interesting because it was tied to his self-loathing,” Fincher said. “Then I started thinking about this inner monologue. He has this whole thing he tells himself, which is a way of demeaning his prey so he can feel better about ostensibly being a serial killer for hire. I thought that could be interesting to navigate.”
Netflix is opening “The Killer” in select theaters on Oct. 27. The film will begin streaming Nov. 10 on the platform.
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