David Fincher is out to make an unsettlingly banal assassin out of Michael Fassbender in The Killer, and if he succeeds, he hopes viewers will be a bit concerned about the person behind them in a shop queue afterward. Especially Home Depot.
Fincher was speaking about his latest film during the press conference at the Venice International Film Festival and went into the details of Fassbender’s character.
Fincher Discusses The Killer Character
“Sympathy was the last thing on my mind as it relates to this character,” said Fincher of Fassbender’s unnamed hitman “He didn’t need to be frightening. You know, the banality of evil. My hope is that someone will see this film and get very nervous about the person behind them in line at Home Depot.”
In addition, Fincher revealed The Smiths played a big part in the character, with the band used as preparation music for the titular killer as he sets up for a job. Why The Smiths though?
“I knew I wanted to use ‘How Soon Is Now’ and I loved the idea of that song specifically as a tool for assuaging his anxieties. I liked it as a meditation tape, I thought it was amusing and funny. And I don’t think there’s a library of music by a recording artist that has as much sardonic nature and wit simultaneously,” Fincher explains, ”We don’t get an awful lot of access to who this guy is, and I thought through his mixtape, it would be amusing that that would be our window into him.”
The trailer for The Killer gave us a glimpse of Fassbender in the role, with a hint of strangeness alongside typical cloak-and-dagger hitman work.
The Killer is written by Andrew Kevin Walker and based on the graphic novel series The Killer, which was written by Alexis Nolent. The film stars not only Michael Fassbender, but also Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton.
We’ll know a lot more about The Killer in the coming weeks as it gets a brief theatrical run on October 27, 2023 before it heads to Netflix on November 10, 2023.
