Michael Fassbender has revealed he nearly slept through his big break on the small screen - playing a patient in Holby City.

The Hollywood actor, nominated for a Bafta for his portrayal of a sex addict in Shame, played a man who had his spleen taken out in an early role in the BBC medical drama.

He told Radio Times: "I remember it clearly because I fell asleep on the operating table.

"The trouble was they were filming the scene over and over again and focusing on all the doctors operating on me and I was lying there with my eyes closed and I just drifted off. I woke to hear someone whispering, 'He's fallen asleep'."

The German-born, Irish-raised, 34-year-old hit the big time when he played IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's Hunger.

He has reunited with McQueen for Shame where he co-stars with Carey Mulligan and Fassbender admits his strong working relationship with the director helped him get over any worries he had about his character's explicit sex scenes.

He said: "I knew that I wanted him to go to places that were ugly and sort of display that ugliness within the character but I had the confidence, from the way he was written, that an audience would feel for him.

"And if it had been a different director, I would have been a lot more wary because some of the scenes are pretty graphic, but I totally trusted Steve."