Michael Fassbender shares reason for acting hiatus: 'Family is my priority now'

Watch: Next Goal Wins star Michael Fassbender on his hiatus

Next Goal Wins star Michael Fassbender may have been absent from cinema screens these past few years, yet the twice Oscar-nominated actor has been busier than ever.

Following the completion of the much-delayed X-Men flick Dark Phoenix, released back in 2019, Fassbender went on something of a hiatus, only now returning with two of the year’s biggest films; Taika Waititi’s football comedy Next Goal Wins (in UK cinemas from 26 December) and David Fincher’s The Killer.

“It feels like coming back having not had anything out since Dark Phoenix,” he tells Yahoo UK. “I definitely wanted to stop when I did stop.”

One reason for the extended break was that Fassbender and his wife, Tomb Raider star Alicia Vikander (also an Oscar nominee), had a child in 2021.

“Before [the hiatus] I was doing three films a year, my career was everything, and I was very focussed on it, and in quite a singular way,” he continues.

“Now I've got a family, so that's my priority. And if I can work with great filmmakers, that's basically the goal, find a project, one a year, and that it falls in line with my wife.

“When she does a job, I want to be at home with our son, and then vice versa, when I'm working, she can be there. So it's just working that balance.”

Fassbender also started racing sports cars competitively in 2017, taking part in the Ferrari Challenge and going on to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in both 2022 and 2023.

“It wasn't necessarily a hiatus from acting, it's just when I'm racing, I can't get insured to act,” he says. “Racing season would start at the beginning of April and end in October, so whatever would come into that short timeframe, that's what I could work on.

“[Next Goal Wins] was one of them. I literally finished a race in Portimao, in Portugal, and then I got on the plane and flew straight out for this.

“And to do the racing, to give it a proper go, I felt like five years is the minimum you can do anything and give it a decent go.”

Next Goal Wins initially started filming back in 2019, though underwent severe delays and reshoots due to the pandemic and cast member Armie Hammer being replaced following multiple allegations of abuse.

The film sees Fassbender play a miserable, down-on-his-luck football coach who is transferred to American Samoa to coach the national team. Based on a documentary of the same name, Next Goal Wins also stars newcomer Kaimana as footballer Jaiyah Saelua.

Meanwhile, Fassbender recently appeared in Netflix’s The Killer, directed by David Fincher, as a Smiths-obsessed assassin.

Next Goal Wins is in cinemas from 26 December.

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Watch a clip from Next Goal Wins