If you do a simple Google search for Michael Fassbender today, there are at least 50 articles about him related to the hacked Sony emails of Scott Rudin, Amy Pascal, and Aaron Sorkin. None of the comments were mean about Michael, thankfully, some of them just were a bit foggy about his star power relevance in Hollywood. The quote that is being used in click bait articles (with click bait headlines) is the slight disrespect about Michael from Aaron Sorkin who just wasn't familiar with him. That's not criminal, and again, this was a personal comment in an email. But it's just so odd that such a powerful guy in Hollywood like Sorkin, whose duty is to KNOW the A-list and rising stars, to reveal his complete ignorance about Michael Fassbender. Over at Awards Watch, some people were trying to defend Sorkin and say that he was being facetious or playing around. Nope, nada, the man did not know Michael Fassbender.
Here is what Aaron Sorkin wrote as he was expressing frustration about the slow progress of the Steve Jobs film and not getting his first actor choice of Tom Cruise:
"This used to be an event. I don't know who Michael Fassbender is and the rest of the world isn't going to care,' he replied to Columbia Pictures chairman Amy Pascal and the film producer Scott Rudin. "This is insane."
But lucky or unluckily for Fassbender, Sorkin eventually conceded. "Fuck it. He's a great actor whose time has come," he later wrote.
"That's where I ended up," Pascal replied. - The Daily Mail
From reading the full context of this very discussion, it appears that everyone started to list movies Michael has been in and said how great he was, and then that's when they really wrote about Shame. Apparently Sorkin did some research, watched Shame, and then changed his mind.
That's ok Aaron, a lot of people didn't know of Michael, but because of this fiasco, they do now.
I'm not going to bash anyone for what they said, these are people in privileged positions of having the power to make or break talent and film projects and they certainly don't know all the actors out there. The question I have is what is Michael Fassbender and his managers thinking right now? Some speculate that Michael is having a fit of giggles over it all. Others, like me, think he may be turned off or embarrassed by it all. I really don't know, but we'll soon learn the outcome of this project if Michael stays on or not in the coming days or week. One thing's for sure is that the irony in all this is that the criminal act of hacking these private emails has inadvertently raised Michael Fassbender's star power to new heights. Last week at IMDB he was at #94, this week it says he's in the Top 500. I estimate that his ranking next week will be in the 30s.
With the Golden Globes announced this morning and Michael received no nomination for Frank. So sadly, that film and his performance has ran its course and has to settle for two cool BIFAs and a cozy spot on your DVD shelf. But in a way, maybe Michael doesn't need to be rubbing shoulders with all of Hollywood a month from now while these email leaks (and the threat of more to come), are still fresh and on people's minds.