Speaking to Britain’s GQ magazine, Michael Fassbender has revealed that, preparing for his role in 12 Years a Slave, he had to practice in order to master cracking a whip.

He plays a cruel slave owner Edwin Epps in the movie and he wanted to perfect his skills so that it would look as realistic as possible on screen.

He said: ”I remember I had to practice on the whip; I had to learn to crack it properly. I remember thinking about the knot it created in my shoulder, the knot it would create from doing such a physical task as whipping the skin off another human’s back.

”That physical memory would stay in the body, my body, Epps’ body. The body would retain the memory of what you have done to your fellow man or fellow woman. What would the psychological effect of this be? The retention of pain in your body memory? It’s got to be stored somewhere. That’s what I tried to with Epps. There’s a deep conflict in the man.”

12 Years a Slave is a movie adaptation of Solomon Northup’s biography, written in 1853. Solomon was born free in New York State but was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery.

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