METHODICAL . UNCOMPROMISING. ULTRA-DISCIPLINED. SOUND FAMILIAR ? EMPIRE FOLLOWS DAVID FINCHER — AND NEW MUSE MICHAEL FASSBENDER — AROUND THE WORLD FOR THEIR BOLD NEW KIND OF HITMAN FILM: THE KILLER

WORDS NEV PIERCE

The actor interviews for this feature were conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike

The Killer (Michael Fassbender) is on target;

Fassbender chats with director David Fincher on set;

The Killer in deathly serious action;

With ‘person of interest’ The Expert (Tilda Swinton).

IF YOU WORE A BUCKET HAT IN PARIS IN THE SUMMER OF 2021, YOU MAY HAVE INSPIRED THE OUTFIT OF THE TITLE CHARACTER IN THE KILLER.

Looking through snaps he took while location-scouting his new thriller, David Fincher zeroed in on a figure in a fishing hat and sunglasses, with a bland tan jacket and sneakers. As hitman headgear goes, this isn’t Alain Delon’s iconic fedora in Le Samouraï, or Tom Cruise’s striking silver mane in Collateral, but Fincher was targeting a different reality.

“It’s the weirdest get-up, but he just blended in,” says the director. “I didn’t go into it going, ‘The world needs the next great assassin to look like Hunter S. Thompson.’ I just thought, ‘Oh, yeah. People are always ignoring tourists.’”

To receive unlikely inspiration, you have to be open to it. Fincher is always forensically focused on the job at hand, planning and probing to deliver something beyond the obvious. And in Michael Fassbender, he has an acting avatar equally prepared to push, even if it requires wearing terrible togs. “Everything is just a little off,” says the actor, explaining how his character — known only as The Killer — shops in airports, choosing convenience clothes designed for economy of effort. He’s always thinking of the job: “staying alert, ready at all times, committed and disciplined.”

Traits the character clearly shares with both the man playing him and the man behind the camera.

THERE ARE LIMITS TO EVERYONE’S control. The Killer has created his own reality as a high-priced assassin living off the grid, until a job goes wrong and his life — and lifestyle — are threatened. “He is a narcissistic individual,” says Fassbender. “His perfect world has been breached. And that can’t happen.”

The Killer’s world has tilted on its axis in the sequence Empire witnesses on the streets of Paris in November 2021, with the low-key hitman speeding from the scene of a job gone wrong. Fincher climbs into a van leaving Place des Vosges, a manicured square in the city’s centre. “I don’t want any shit from anyone,” he says, with exaggerated grumpiness, braced for another night shoot. “I had 90 minutes sleep.” Other passengers include Ceán Chaffin, Fincher’s long-time producer (and wife), and Erik Messerschmidt, master of both cinematography and the cheerful non sequitur: “Did you know selfies are the third-largest cause of death in India?”

Messerschmidt is invariably good conversation, fuelled by curiosity. When we reach the shopping arcade The Killer’s moped will speed through, he mentions ‘cursed’ ’80s shocker Poltergeist, which left a disproportionate amount of cast and crew dead “or in an insane asylum”. “No, that’s Panic Room,” deadpans Fincher.

It’s a throwaway line, though The Killer bears some comparison to 2002’s home-invasion thriller, both for its technical demands and for being a straight-ahead genre picture following a passion project: Fight Club then, Mank now. Fincher sits by the monitor. “I’ll be watching TV if you need me.” After the moped motors past, he shouts instructions for where the camera should land on the next take: “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be within three inches.” Someone laughs. It may be funny, it’s also true. On the final take the moped fishtails a little as it corners, a momentary loss of control that feels authentic — the sort of reality you only get with repetition.