Fassbender to star in Brendan Gleeson's directorial debut

Michael Fassbender has joined the cast of Brendan Gleeson's directorial debut, At Swim-Two-Birds .

The movie looks set to be a celebration of all things Irish, with Gabriel Byrne, Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy already attached. Gleeson and his son Domhall are also set to star.

Gleeson is adapting the movie from Flann O'Brien's 1939 novel. It doesn't look like the actor is going easy on himself for his first stab at writing and directing though, with the novel's complex meta-plot defying easy summarisation.

It concerns a student who is writing a couple of stories that begin to intertwine, before the characters decide to rebel against their creator.

The cast, particularly megastar-in-the-making Fassbender, should add a bit of heft to what could be a difficult sell at the box office.

Gleeson has always been a charming onscreen presence, and he has looked as comfortable in the largest scale blockbusters as he has in smaller dramas and comedies, so he's earned endless amounts of goodwill from us.

He'll next be seen in The Guard .

At Swim-Two-Birds is expected to shoot in spring 2012.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.