Michael Fassbender says he tried to find the 'human being' in his 12 Years A Slave character.
12 Years A Slave has been receiving critical acclaim on the festival circuit as Steve McQueen is back in the director's chair.
Fassbender takes on the role of evil slave owner Edwin Epps, and the actor says he tried to look past his villainous nature.
Speaking to Flicks and Bits the actor said: "He's a human being, so I approached him with a very human touch," he recalled. "I tried to find his voice first. I worked with a lot of different tapes and our dialect coach helped me out a lot."
"It was about finding the human being in [my character] Epps, because obviously what he does is pretty terrible, but... I don't know, there's something in there where I feel a little sorry for him.
"He's a victim of the time as well, in a way. He's in love with [slave] Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) and he can't deal with it, he thinks, 'How can I be in love with a slave?'
"So he sets about suppressing her and beating her to try to beat it out of himself. So I thought that there was a really amazing humanity in that alone.
"So that was my in - the love for Patsey and how he was processing that. I think I see Epps as a representative of the time, all the ugliness and despicable is culminated into this character."
12 Years A Slave is set to be a major awards contender by the beginning of next year and could end up being an Oscar winner.
As for Fassbender we are also going to be seeing him in The Counsellor, Frank, X-Men: Days of Future Past and a Terrence Malick movie between now and the middle of next year.
12 Years A Slave is released 24th January 2014
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