10 Michael Fassbender Performances That Left Us Speechless

5) 12 Years A Slave

If you want to be cynical about it, you could say Jared Leto had it easy winning that Supporting Actor Oscar for Dallas Buyer’s Club. Leto, in playing a volatile transsexual with HIV, hit what Ricky Gervais’ Extras character would call the Academy Award jackpot.

Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender, up against Leto for playing a slave-owner in 12 Years A Slave, never stood a chance. Where Leto had an inspirational role to his name, Fassbender’s part was too sadistic and too complicated to win.

All the same, it was the performance that should have won Supporting Actor in 2013. For all the aforementioned reasons, Fassbender’s had one of the most difficult acting jobs that year: taking the borderline evil slaver Edwin Epps and making him human.

It was surely too uncomfortable for Academy voters that Fassbender made Epps sympathetic as well as frequently repulsive – but those who turned away from this repellent were only denying themselves the pleasure of seeing an actor at the top of his game, no matter how off-putting the material.