Originally published December 22, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
Michael Fassbender has been attached to numerous franchises in the past five years alone, between his work as Magneto in the X-Men films, David in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant and Aguilar in Assassin’s Creed, but he missed out on one that would have been the biggest of them all.
During an appearance on Happy Sad Confused (via EW), a podcast hosted by MTV News correspondent Josh Horowitz, Fassbender revealed that he spoke with J.J. Abrams and folks at Disney/Lucasfilm about having a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, after Horowitz questioned him about old rumors. The long-awaited seventh installment in the Star Wars franchise, of course, went on to become the third-highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide.
“We talked about a role. We had a conversation. I’m pretty sure I was busy doing something else in the summer [J.J. Abrams] was kickstarting that,” said Fassbender.
Fassbender’s comment confirms reports that popped up in January 2014, which claimed that he had met with Abrams about doing the film.
In some ways, perhaps missing out on the movie was a good thing, as audiences may have never seen Fassbender in Slow West, Macbeth or Steve Jobs, three movies whose schedules could have conflicted with that of The Force Awakens. The latter of the three even earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars and all of them earned him acclaim, so it worked out in the end.
