"What are the risks? If we look at it - how can it be risky for me? Then you start to go into sort of an area about worrying about your image, or whatever that is. I mean, I'm not like a politician; I'm a storyteller and I'm supposed to facilitate stories, they're not supposed to facilitate me. So that's what it's all about."

"I got a real sort of insight into this difficulty that Brandon has with intimacy. It was exactly the same condition that this guy had, and you just realize, very quickly, how real this condition is and how it can tear lives apart. And it definitely made it clear to me that this is a real addiction, even though it hasn't been recognized officially as one. And then, okay, you've got to respect this guy and you've got to do a good job, just alone for him."

Michael also plotted out his character's history, which proved vital, given the dearth of backstory that the film presents. There are no flashbacks, with action constricted to a few restaurants, apartments and textured shots of late night New York City, and the dialogue is spare. The audience learns that Brandon and his visiting young sister, played by Carey Mulligan, went through some sort of trauma as children, but little else. Fleshing out the character, therefore, required some creativity.

Fassbender not only established the details of that traumatic event - a secret he kept close to the vest - but went as far as to figure out Brandon's dietary habits; breakfast is limited to "a can of Red Bull and probably, like, a croissant, at most," he said, given that his miserable character "doesn't get sensual pleasure from eating."

Sex addiction is a touchy subject, and those afflicted by it don't engender much sympathy - much to Fassbender's annoyance. "Most of us have sex, so I don't understand what we're trying to sweep under the carpet or repress or not take a look at it," he says.

MPAA slapped the film with an NC-17, a rare label that effectively works as a muzzle, given that most theaters don't carry films with that rating. That concerns Fassbender, he says, because it's "a serious film that deserves to be treated as such." He also finds the whole controversy a bit silly.

"Half of us have a penis and the other half have probably seen one, and so why should it be more normal to, like, chop people's heads off and shoot people? Does that mean that that's more acceptable or closer to us as human beings?"

"You don't know what anybody else is going to feel, you just go for it and put it out there and hopefully other people connect to it in some way or another."

The original source is here