CS: Rochester is almost as an iconic character as Jane Eyre herself, especially to the women who read the book who must have great expectations of what Rochester would be like.I. Can't. Even. Total respect here. OMG.
Fassbender: Yeah, that's the thing, and I did watch all the previous versions as well, a lot of them I could get my hands on.
CS: Wasn't Orson Welles one of them?
Fassbender: Yeah, I watched that and at one point, I was supposed to be doing "Wuthering Heights," about three years ago I think it was now, so I watched Laurence Olivier do his "Wuthering Heights," and I was like, "Woah, it's so overdramatic," and the same with Orson Welles, it's like (doing his impression of Welles) "Jaaane... Jaaaaaaaane...!" I think Toby Stephens was my favorite - he did it for ITV, one of the British channels, it was a six-parter for television. Then I threw it all away and then I sort of concentrated on what was in the book and what was in the script. By treating him as the Byronic hero, which Brontë wrote him like, that gave me all I needed and then I thought, "Okay, he seems a bit bipolar as well." His moods sort of swing and it's because of all the sh*t that's going on in his head and the fact that (SPOILERS!!!!!) he's got this woman locked upstairs in the attic that's always with him in a way that's almost like he's carrying a weight with him as well.
Read more: Exclusive: Jane Eyre's Rochester, Michael Fassbender - ComingSoon.net