Band of Brothers: which character did Michael Fassbender play?
Long before Magneto, long before Steve Jobs, Michael Fassbender was a barely-known actor with two credits to his name.
His third was Band of Brothers — the 2001 HBO miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.
His character
Fassbender played Technical Sergeant Burton P. "Pat" Christenson, a machine gunner and original member of Easy Company. Christenson is there from the beginning — boot camp at Camp Toccoa under the hated Captain Sobel — and stays through to the end of the war.
How much screen time does he get?
Fassbender appears in seven of the ten episodes. He's not a lead; Christenson is part of the ensemble, often seen in foxholes behind his Browning machine gun. He has scattered speaking lines throughout the series, including moments in the recurring discussions about whether Lieutenant Speirs really did execute those prisoners.
His most emotionally charged appearance comes in "Why We Fight" (Episode 9), where Christenson can be seen behind Major Winters as Easy Company discovers and liberates a Nazi concentration camp.
Why it matters
Band of Brothers was Fassbender's screen debut and his first significant acting work. He was 24 years old during production. Within a decade, he would star in Inglourious Basterds, Hunger, X-Men: First Class, 12 Years a Slave, and Steve Jobs. His Band of Brothers co-star James McAvoy — who played replacement Private James Miller — would later become his on-screen rival as Professor X.
If you rewatch Band of Brothers knowing what Fassbender would become, it's easy to spot him. But in 2001, he was just another face in the company.