The Counselor

After they worked together on last summer’s sci-fi epic Prometheus, Ridley Scott sent Michael Fassbender the script for The Counselor, by acclaimed novelist Cormac McCarthy. ”I read it and immediately called Ridley and told him I was in,” says the actor, who plays a lawyer drawn into a drug-running operation with some very shady individuals. ”He’s the passenger,” says Fassbender. ”He’s our ticket into this world, and we’re introduced to all the various characters through him, from his fiancée right down to the ne’er-do-wells.”

Javier Bardem plays one of those ne’er-do-wells, a member of the criminal demimonde that includes Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz. Bardem won an Oscar playing the moptopped killing machine Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, based on another McCarthy yarn. His character in The Counselor is a little less imposing, though he boasts an equally wacky hairdo. ”There’s a tackiness to him,” says Fassbender. ”And he’s got a bit of a crazy look, but that doesn’t mean he’s harmless.”