Michael Fassbender has garnered an awful lot of praise for his performance as a sex addict in Shame (out in the UK on January 13th). While the character is largely heterosexual, at one point he ends up in gay bathhouse, a situation Fassbender recently addressed in an interview with Time Out Chicago.

After being asked whether the slightly ominous scene was equating the character having gay sex with his descent into depravity, Fassbender said, “It doesn’t become about homosexuality or heterosexuality, it becomes about a fix, and where can I get my fix? That is a real scenario for many addicts that are predominantly heterosexual and they end up with a guy. You put yourself into a scenario that you wouldn’t do in a normal situation because your choice is gone.”

Fassbender also noted that he’d done a lot of research in sex addiction and was grateful to “one man in particular, his honesty gave me great insight into the gravity of the situation. When you’re imprisoned by these compulsions, what makes it different to the other addictions, it’s part and parcel of us. Alcohol is an extremity you’re adding into your life. But sex is something that most of us do. It’s a very strong primal instinct.”

While there’s been a lot of Oscar buzz over Fassbender’s performance, many believe he’ll miss out not because he doesn’t deserve it, but because the sexually frank themes and nature of Shame (along with its liberal inclusion of Michael Fassbender’s penis) are distasteful to the Academy’s old guard, who still hold a lot of sway over the awards. We’ll have to wait and see if that turns out to be true.