Michael Fassbender has revealed that he is taking a break from acting, NME reports.

The star is due to appear in the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed movie and he has starred in a number of X-Men movies over the last few years and more recently appeared in the Steve Jobs biopic.

“It’s been pretty full on,” he admitted. “I had a ferocious appetite and energy for it, and I went at it like a maniac. But I’m going to take some downtime now. The last five years, I was verging on being a workaholic. I’ve just been going from film to film.”

The actor also admitted he wouldn’t rule out quitting acting altogether in the future.

He told Time Out: “I’m not ruling it out. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but a part of me thinks you have a time as an actor when you’re at your best. There’s a journey to it, and then it’s downhill.”

Fassbender recently said the notion of DNA memory “makes a lot of sense”.

In his forthcoming film Assassin’s Creed, out January 1 2017, Fassbender’s character Callum Lynch is forced to relive the memories of his 15th-century Spanish ancestor Aguilar by a conglomerate called Abstergo Technologies, using the fictional ‘Animus’ technology.

Discussing the idea of ancestral memories being passed down in DNA, Fassbender said: “I wasn’t aware of that until I met the guys from [game developer] Ubisoft. I thought, ‘Wow, scientifically that makes a lot of sense.’”

He added: “[Director] Justin [Kurzel] says it’s a film about belonging – roots and ancestry. It’s about what you leave behind for the next generation.”

The film is directed by Macbeth director Justin Kurzel, and also stars Marillon Cotillard, who, like Kurzel, worked with Fassbender on Macbeth. Assassin’s Creed has been in development since 2011 and it sees Fassbender acting as co-producer for the first time in his career.