Is Michael Fassbender the next Robert Pattinson?

Is Michael Fassbender the next Robert Pattinson?

Things are still fairly normal for Michael Fassbender, who plays Magneto in the hotly anticipated prequel X-Men: First Class.

The actor, who doesn't have a publicist or anything resembling an entourage, actually walked three blocks down Sixth Avenue from his midtown lunch spot to his next New York interview, without being bothered or recognized by fanboys. All that could well change when his film opens next Friday.

"I don't know what's going to happen. I don't really think of it. I'll have to take it as it comes, really. It's one of those things I'll have to deal with if and when it arrives," says Fassbender.

So if he becomes the next Robert Pattinson, who generates a frenetic mob scene wherever he goes, maybe he'll go live on an island and be surrounded by bodyguards? "I like the island part, but bodyguards only attract more attention to me. I think I can blend in pretty well," says Fassbender.

In First Class, he plays Magneto, a smoldering "lone assassin" out to kill the man who murdered his mother in a concentration camp and experimented on the young boy, thereby enhancing his powers to move objects. First Class tells the back-story of how Fassbender's Magneto and James McAvoy's Charles Xavier became friends, only to have their relationship fall apart at the end of the film. "In this film, a lot depends on their relationship. It was very important for us to get the beat to that relationship right so when it finally does fracture, there's a sense of tragedy," says Fassbender.

He's got several films in the pipeline and says he's "at the halfway point with Prometheus and after that, I think I'll disappear for a while -- with four bodyguards. I'm going to take 2 or 3 months off, for some downtime," says the actor.

Fassbender and McAvoy are signed on for the next two X-Men films, should they happen. Fassbender has an interesting vision for the progression of the series: X-Men: The Golden Years, with the two Mutants living in a retirement home. "Magneto and Charles are still battling it out. Their powers are depleting. The best he can do is move a dinner tray across the room," says Fassbender.

See photos of: Robert Pattinson

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Jules Asner Paz Vega Brittny Gastineau Drea de Matteo Emmanuelle Chriqui