Michael Fassbender by Jim Maloney

‘Just, you know, it makes a happier environment to come to work to and you know that, if you can have a laugh while you’re doing creative stuff and you’re getting the work done as well, that’s great.’
    The show was generally well received with the Sunday Times saying, ‘The punchy script and natty lesbian sidekick make this a promising start.’ The Sunday People said, ‘This stylish supernatural drama is a grown-up thrilling chiller. Forget Buffy , Bewitched and Charmed – this is not for those of us of a nervous disposition.’ But the Observer was less than impressed: ‘It would be easy to describe this rather predictable series as a British Buffy the Vampire Slayer , which would appeal to many, but this viewer was left with the feeling of having seen it all before.’
    The month after Hex started showing on Sky One and began building up an impressive fan base, Michael began filming on the popular BBC1 cop drama Murphy’s Law , which starred James Nesbitt in the title role of undercover cop, DS Tommy Murphy. The third series focussed on one story which began with Murphy posing as a gun dealer who becomes deeper involved in crime when a buyer named Caz Miller, played by Michael, mentions that the gun is to be used for a hit. Murphy then goes undercover as a hitman and discovers that Miller works for well-known gangster Dave Callard (Mark Womack), who has been using his ill-gotten gains for legitimate enterprises and wants to kill an employee, Richard Holloway, who is supposedly sleeping with his wife.
    The Observer called the final episode, in which Callard, Miller and Murphy go into hiding, ‘a grand finale to this ambitious series, which has successfully raised the bar for British detective drama’.
    Michael drew on his German heritage once more to play a German POW in a BBC Four drama called Hidden Lives , based on the best-selling book by Simon Garfield. Beginning in the 1930s, more than 1,000 ‘ordinary’ people volunteered to chronicle their daily lives. These diaries were compiled for the Mass Observation Project, described as ‘an anthropology of ourselves’. In his book, Our Hidden Lives , Simon Garfield selected five of the most interesting diarists and focused on the post-war years from 1945 to 1948, providing a remarkable picture of how people coped in Britain during this period when the austerity seemed to drag on and on.
    In the TV adaptation, Michael’s character has a sexual relationship with an older man, a snobbish gay antiques dealer who lives in Edinburgh, played by Ian McDiarmid. This required the actors to be half naked in bed together. It was an awkward scene for both of them but Michael didn’t shy away from such things. Stripping naked for his first appearance on TV had lessened his inhibitions!
    By now, Michael was gaining a reputation as a versatile actor, not afraid to take on challenging roles, playing characters that were not necessarily likeable and, in some cases, distinctly unpleasant – psychotic murderers, callous boyfriends, violent criminals and demonic ‘angels’ among them.
    In an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot , called After the Funeral , he played an upper-class Englishman named George Abernethie who is believed to be the sole beneficiary in his uncle Richard’s will. But after Richard’s death, the family seem surprised to hear that he had disinherited his favourite nephew and shared his wealth among the others. The two had supposedly argued recently but the family lawyer, George Entwhistle, suspects the new may be a forgery and he has reason to be even more suspicious when Richard’s eccentric sister Cora remarks at the funeral, ‘It’s been hushed up very nicely … but he was murdered, wasn’t he?’
    Richard, 68 and a widower, had lost his only child, Mortimer, to polio six months earlier. Mortimer, who was about to marry, died with no issue