Local actor Michael Fassbender, who has made it big in Hollywood, plans to make a movie about motor racing. The world’s greatest endurance race and the make belief world of Hollywood have lived side-by-side for decades. That relationship may not always have been harmonious but that could change thanks to the actor turned professional race driver. In the past, Hollywood depictions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans’ have always irked die-hard motor racing fans. Even the 2019 blockbuster, ‘Ford v Ferrari Le Mans ’66’, which starred Matt Damon, Christian Bale and Irish actress Caitriona Balfe, managed to avoid, on the whole, changing the true story. Hollywood legend Steve McQueen’s 1971 classic ‘Le Mans’ has more appeal for racing fans over film buffs as it includes real footage from 1970s races - but it was a box-office flop. “Depending on who you talk to, Le Mans is either the best film of all time or a collection of racing footage that’s loosely tied together with something resembling a plot. Both of these descriptions sound just fine to us,” says US automotive journalist Jay Ramey. Hollywood and Le Mans are set to join forces (or maybe clash) again and thanks to Fassbender and the fact versus fiction argument is about to be settled for once and for all. “My first dream has always been to go racing, even before the acting. It was always very clear to me from a young age. I always felt an affinity with cars, I felt a connection with driving and speed,” Fassbender, who starred in ‘12 Years a Slave’, ‘X-Men’ and Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien: Covenant’ and ‘Prometheus’, said. That dream has become more than a reality in recent years. He is in his second season in the European Le Mans Series,
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an international championship that is only a few steps away from racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans itself. The fact that Fassbender is a racing driver who also happens to be a very good actor and not an actor who is also a racing enthusiast like McQueen, can only mean the Hollywood’s next adaption of the great race will equally appeal to petrolheads and movie goers. “My father was always a keen driver. He taught me how to drive. So at a young age I was lucky enough to be allowed in the car. I always tried to go as fast as I could on the straight and take that hairpin as fast as I could,” he says. Two years ago he was the Rally of the Lakes ambassador and drove a specially-prepared Ford Escort rally car on the two-day race that is run over closed public roads in the Killarney hinterland. Prior to his local debut he raced in the prestigious Ferrari Challenge in America including taking one outright win during the 2018 season – his second year driving in the championship. “It’s a lot more fun prepping for this than learning lines at home, the downside being, if you miss an apex or mess up a corner, you don’t get a ‘take two’.” The 2019 Rally of the Lakes was the start of his own road to Le Mans and his dream to contest the most-famous endurance race in the world. For the 2020 season, Fassbender joined the Germany-based Team Proton Competition, which is partially owned by fellow Hollywood A-lister and motor racing fan Patrick Dempsey, and set on the ‘Road to Le Mans’. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is scheduled for August this year.
