'Shame' star Michael Fassbender: 'Intelligent audience does exist'

Michael Fassbender has insisted that moviegoing audiences can be intelligent.

The Shame star revealed that he believes his new film works with viewers by allowing them to participate in the movie.

"I always think that there are intelligent filmgoing audiences out there," Fassbender told the Los Angeles Times. "They can do the work, and they can fill in the blanks and participate.

"And sometimes their imagination or that participation is much more interesting than what you might be able to express as an actor or a writer or a director."

Meanwhile, Shame director Steve McQueen insisted that he wants his stars "to bring a little bit of themselves into the character".

"I'm not interested in acting," he said. "Acting is a certain thing, but they have to be present in the room. Of course it's acting. But it goes beyond a certain kind of illustration of a character. You have to break through a boundary."

Carey Mulligan went on to say that McQueen is very supportive of his stars.

"He is like your biggest cheerleader," she said. "He saw everything as a dance. Or he'd come in and give some football analogy, 'It's like it's half-time and you're 4-nil up, but we could be 8-nil up. I know we can!' Just like insane enthusiasm."

Mulligan recently admitted that she "saw the danger" in Fassbender, saying that the actor went quite far to get inside the mind of his dark character.

Earlier this month, Fassbender denied that the nudity in Shame is exploitative, insisting that the on-screen stripping was entirely appropriate for the character.

Watch the trailer for Shame below: