HUNGER
Hunger is a brilliant new film by British artist Steve McQueen about imprisoned IRA member and MP Bobby Sandsandthel981hunger strike in the Maze Prison after which he died. Paul Dale meets the film's stars Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham
‘ ere you out last night my friendlr‘ls it that obvious." I say pulling down a wrinkled lower
eyelid to expose an eye as bloodshot as those of
the two men opposite me. They are hot young actor Michael l‘assbender - all fair brown hair. blue eyes. slight frame and Kilkenny accent. and veteran Dublin thespian Liam (‘unningham
older. beelier but kinder looking. We are sitting in a windowless antechamber in one of San Sebastian‘s grandest hotels. 'l‘here's a glass table between us upon which (‘unningham is flicking the ash from his cigarette in the absence of an ashtray. Fassbender is nursing a large and lurid
18 THE LIST fat; ()cl ta Non L’f/LB
I'IflllllE
Bloody Mary.
We are here to talk about Hunger. film debut of Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen about the emotive events that led to the 1981 hunger strike at the Maze Prison and the death of provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member and local MP Bobby Sands (played by Fassbender). The film is showing at the seaside city's annual film festival and the boys have come to enjoy some late summer sun and shoot the breeze about an important film that they both seem to know may just be their legacy.
lt's before noon and a clearly tired Fassbender irritably fields all too familiar questions about the weight loss regime he followed in the film. ‘Ycah. I had to get down to 58 kilos. At 58 your body mass and fat ratio are stable. any lower than that and you get into the danger zone. It took ten weeks and yes I did find the whole process htunbling. When you deprive yourself to that extent. of course you are going to start appreciating the smaller things in life.‘
‘lt‘s a remarkable thing. a real achievement what he did.‘ murmurs Cunningham with a sleepy smirk. Fassbender‘s uniquely entenaining turns in 300. Angel and Wedding Belles suddenly seem a long way away. Is this what they call the martyr complex? I decide to keep it simple and ask how he became involved in the film.
"l‘he film‘s casting director Gary Davy gave me the script. I looked at it and thought “Jesus. what the fuck?" The first act was pretty sparse in dialogue and then you get to act two and it‘s like this fucking avalanche of words. it‘s like a cascade. and I‘m thinking. “How do you tackle this?" And in the third act it‘s starvation and death. 1 was thinking “Who the fuck wants to watch this for an hour and a half?“ So I thought "I don‘t think I want to do this.‘ Fassbender takes another hit from the hangover fixer and visibly seems to mellow. ‘So — God bless him — Gary called me up and was like "Before you make your decision you‘ve got to meet this guy. Steve McQueen“ and I thought "Yeah of course I'll meet him. How stupid of me. and then once I got in the room there was this large black man from lingland wanting to make a film about Bobby Sands. and l was like. "Why the fuck do you wanna make a film about Bobby Sands man?“