Michael Fassbender Okay with Hitting Female Costar

Emerging film sensation, Michael Fassbender is best known for starring in several high profile films, such as 'X-Men First Class', 'A Dangerous Method' and 'Shame'. Yet the star's latest on-screen venture, 'Haywire' required him to engage in some serious violence against actress Gina Carano. The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, features a stunningly choreographed hotel confrontation between the two stars, who play assassins posing as husband and wife. The furniture destroying, glass-shattering scene gives new meaning to until death do us part.

So did the German born Irishman have any reservations about acting out such brutality? During a press conference for the film's international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, he revealed:

It didn't really faze me. This isn't Michael Fassbender doing this, it's the character. I'm here to serve the story and the character. And in real life, Gina would beat the sh** out of me in any circumstance. I mean, have you seen her on YouTube?

Carano can be seen in countless online videos ruthlessly winning cage fighting matches and defeating contestants on 'American Gladiator'. The former MMA champion did face some minor injuries on set; she broke her finger during the undoubtedly sensual battle with Fassbender. That's a surprisingly small setback for Carano, who has hot coffee thrown in her face during the very first scene and is terrorized from there on out.

For Fassbender, hitting a woman isn't the hardest thing he's had to do for a role. For the 2008 film 'Hunger' he starved for two months to play Bobby Sands, a Northern Irish prisoner on strike. Last year, he portrayed a lonesome sex addict in 'Shame' and appeared fully nude in the NC-17 film's opening scene.