Christian Bale Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

I don't really know how to do the sort of prep stuff without it being somewhat intensive because otherwise I just don't feel I have the confidence I always imagine that I'm going to get to set and the director is going to go I don't even like this scene make it up and I've got to be ready for that and if I'm not ready for that I feel very insecure arriving on the set [Music] American Psycho [Music] new card what do you think very nice look at that picked them up from the printers yesterday good coloring that's bone any scene we would do in every single day I had the book by my side and I would read through it every single time because Brett had just had so many wonderful descriptions and I think that was why Mary and I clicked was because when I first went and auditioned for her I just went to her apartment and it was just her with a little camera and I I didn't approach it like she said the other actors had where they were talking about what's his childhood what's the reason he's become this I was like ah none of that really matters he's just like this alien and so as we were doing the scene I started laughing and she started cracking up and we both realized we had the same very sick sense of humor and we were like oh yeah all right this will work between us she really put herself on the line you know and I so appreciate that because she had so many known actors who who were stepping up and wanted to do it and she just said no I want Christian even though all the financiers were saying we're going to give you no money and then actually kicked the two of us off uh you know we went and we did a stage reading in New York for it uh William Defoe was there Chloe 70 was there and Brace and Ellis was there and then we got the money yay but what our agents forgot to do our agents at the time uh forgot to do was to include us in the package and so we raised the money and then they said right and the two of you bye-bye but um I I went a little bit psycho myself in that and I just said well no I'm still making the film and even though other people were cast other directors were on board I just kept on prepping and I would call Mary up and she would say Christian they've given it to other people I was like yeah yeah no it doesn't matter what still going to make it and she was like oh he's lost the plot and all my friends were saying that to me like what are you doing and I was turning down it wasn't like I was getting offered much but you know a couple of projects not very good ones I turned them down and kept on going and lo and behold look at that it did eventually come back so that felt like a great Victory don't doubt you got instincts you know I always listen always be aware of the style that the director is looking for but understand you're always going to bring something unique from anybody else when there still was the Wall Street trading floors and everything I went and visited you know all different levels of people at Wall Street but the guys on the trading floor when I arrived there before making the film I got there and a bunch of them they were going oh Patrick Bateman and Pat me on the back and go oh yeah we love him and I was like yeah ironically right and they were like what do you mean so it was always worrying um even back then but you know clearly look it's a satire on capitalism in the 80s and as such is is so bloody far-fetched and ridiculous the you know to me I can't help but think it's hilarious [Music] it's the release of their 1980 album Duke I'm not going to ruin anyone's enjoyment and say that I'm not a huge fan and they're not life-changing songs of course they are for everyone right come on when you admit it for me it's a music's so much a part of actually building characters as well you know like for Amsterdam David and I were listening to them and watching a lot of jazz documentaries Etc and I use all sorts of different uh music to help me you know get into the mood when I'm working because emotion really comes through the ears you know something that you notice when you're in the edit room you really see how you can see the visual keep that the same but change the music and it absolutely changes the way you feel about it so it's such a you know a joy of Life get a goddamn job stopping you I remember somebody threatening me on the street because some people did object to the film getting made and all that and I remember people saying that they were going to do me harm and stuff like that you know and I would actually go like I don't know if it's somebody somebody wanted me must have been a friend of mine who was crazy early on the internet and they warned me they called me up and they went there's some person and they know where you walk every single day and you go down this back alley and they say that they're going to jump on you and they're going to rip your cerebral cortex out of your head so please don't go down that alley so of course I was like I'm going to that alley I want to see what happens unfortunately nothing I kept walking up and down here going where are they come on nothing ever happened Batman [Music] a weirdo right jumping around town at night in a bad outfit in many ways in the same way that people were telling me hey you can't go play Patrick Bateman it's career suicide and I was like Bring it on I definitely want to do that other people also said hey you know if you play Batman that's it you're never going to play anything else again you will always be Batman and I went Bring It On Let's see if that happens because I just always felt like look if I don't have the skill to be able to rise above that then I don't deserve to either I absolutely know and cherish the fact that that will be the role I'm probably remembered for most you know every is an iconic you know Larger than Life um uh role but I don't view it really as old being stopped in the street for me it was ah I could pay off my house that's a huge relief you know that was a dream of mine since being a kid so I really appreciate that I think Chris Nola no end for that you know the experience of actually working with him of course and we went on to make you know four films together but the fact that that allowed me to make so many other films you know for instance it took Mary a Herculean effort which I so appreciate to get me cast in American Psycho post Batman it got a little bit easier for directors to suggest me and finance use to say okay yeah we'll take him you've got the wounded child who never moved on from the atrocity and tragedy that happens to him and he loses his parents and then the kind of monster that represents you know all this anger and that he you know concentrates focuses into this character of uh the Batman and then the kind of charade which is the the Playboy apparently vacant and that no one would ever suspect of having any beliefs or causes ever in his life most of my recollection of making Batman is sitting doing crosswords by myself in a blue tent with very uncomfortable stuff on because they want to be ready in 15 minutes at any given go so I was always sitting there and these things going uh four down hello is anyone out there Heath Ledger who oh my God you know what a performance what a pleasure to have gotten to work with him and just to see him you know and how much he put himself into the Joker and I would and I was watching it going yeah this is absolutely fantastic are we in trouble here of when Chris and I first sat down we said you're not the problem but Batman is is that the villains are always more interesting right and so Batman actually he's very close to being a villain himself so let's never let him become dull by comparison and unfortunately I was sitting there going I'm feeling a little bit dull by comparison because Heath is just like killing this and but I'm so proud of that film I love it that the Dark Knight is absolutely extraordinary you know and it was such a pleasure to have gone away with ease I don't want to kill you what would I do without you go back to ripping off mob dealers no no no no you you a complete me you're garbage you kills for money don't talk like one of them you're not even if you'd like to be he was a wonderful um go-kart driver a racer yeah we went we went and raced the go-karts and holy crap he'd be all the stunt guys and everything he was quick when we went to the track we thought of course the stunt guys are going to win and there's suddenly Heath wins gets top place and then very quietly mentions you know my dad was a go-kart racer very talented individual and a great soul to be around yeah I miss him crazy The Fighter [Music] Vicky he's such a character like he makes his presence felt all the time I mean I spent so much time hanging out with Dickie beforehand and still in touch and still in touch with Dickie Jr being in Lowell hanging out with him going walking around getting kicked out of bars having almost every cop stopping and going hey hey Dicky and then telling me about a story about when they arrested him going to the boxing gym jumping in the ring and sparring with him and oh my God it's really quite something when you you might think you can ah I'll be a decent boxer Spa with other amateurs and whatnot I've done that a few times but when you get in the ring with a pro bloody hell do I remember one time he was sitting and he was reading the script and I was busy doing something else and suddenly I see him like stand up and he starts walking over to David like oh and I could see you know something had happened and I went weed this ain't good and jumped over and said dicky dicky dicky what and just kind of talked him down because it was about sort of you know hey look when you tell someone's story you go don't sell the good stuff and you've got to tell the bad stuff otherwise there ain't no story there at all it was the first film that I've made with David and so getting to understand this process more and then and then he's kind of enhanced that as we've made more films together and I loved it I loved playing a Dickie so much there were hilarious things and there was you know stuff to do with just sort of almost being shut down by the local cops and things like that but to me that's all part of the fun of it there's a machinist you okay don't I look okay right when I turned that was really stand at how much weight I'd lost he went oh you really did it like he didn't think I really was going to that was just a the outward show of his guilt and being eaten alive literally you know by guilt I'd come off of making a couple of films that I've been less than satisfied with and just really wanted something where I could become immersed and obsessed with it you know I mean I remember at the time it was like not the smart thing to do because there was no money in it and it was like oh bloody I'm gonna lose my place where I'm living and I was quite newly married and all that so it wasn't the business smart thing to do but I've never been Smart in a business way but it was something that I really wanted to challenge myself and kind of see could I achieve that could I fulfill how I imagined that the part of Trevor should be played um you know and testing myself perfect fit a lot of times actually I would sit there with headphones in but I wasn't listening to anything I was just pretending to listen so that I could actually hear everything that was going on but nobody thought I could also at the time I was engaged in a very filthy habit of smoking so I was rolling my own cigarettes and sitting there puffing away I did read numerous things I remember because the conversation with Brad the director I was I read crime and punishment but then I was reading a lot lighter Fair as well the main point was that somehow losing all the physical weight put all the energy into my brain and so I only slept two hours a night and all I wanted to do was read and so I would just sit and read endlessly and I found that I could read without stopping and needing to move or get a distraction I could I could just sit and read for 10 hours straight without moving a muscle yeah I can't do that now The Big Short I've been very clear people will withdraw their money if if if the fund's capitals drop too much then the swaps contracts are avoided and then the banks uh get to keep all of them wait a minute wait all of it what the contract's avoided the contract's avoided I had a wonderful day where we sat in his darkened office together and just chatted and they had scheduled all these things for us to go out and about and do different stuff and we ended up doing none of that because we just enjoyed talking with each other so much and had just an extraordinary day and he was so helpful and then he came to visit the set and then you know we keep in touch from time to time and he's an extraordinarily special guy wow what a role you know so my first time working with Adam which I just loved you know he's he's something else you know it's like with David you know when you get really great directors they're very unique uh in in the way that they work [Music] anyone who plays drums can look and go Christian doesn't play drums but that to me was not the point the point was not that Michael burry was a shith drummer it was that he took his anger out on these drums and I did I was just shattering the drumsticks they were flying across the crew had to all put Shields up because so many of them were flying at speed everybody I love to get to interview people I love to get to really study them in an obsessive way that you wouldn't get to usually that's part of the joy of of the job for me Vice [Music] a sense that you're a kinetic leader you make decisions based on instinct I am people I said that yeah yeah very different very different from from your father in that regard all right let's dig a bit deeper and go do the very unlikely thing of me play Dick Cheney which I was like what Adam are you high usually they don't allow special effects makeup artists that much time to prep but I said no wait we've got to have you know months and months and months to to get anywhere close to something that can work here because it's it's the movement you know thank God you know we've had people who were patient enough with me to just kind of keep going and keep going and keep going until eventually going all right I think I think we're in the realm a wonderful experience working you know with Adam he uses a mic and we'll kind of just Chuck out lines and Chuck out ideas and try saying this instead not improvising but like you know suggesting lines and nudging you in the right direction but you've got to be prepared to Pivot and be on your toes even though Cheney's very not somebody who you would think of as being on his toes he's very much like flat-foot but yeah and I really enjoyed uh the immersion that that took you know even though it was like the four hours in the chair and whatnot I'd never believed that it could be possible that I could play him and to to give it a shot he's just a was a wonderful risk you have authorization to shoot down any aircraft deemed a threat presidential Authority that is correct all the orders are uniteer unity unless otherwise directed Mr Vice President are we sure these are the proper Rules of Engagement the country is under attack the Roe is fluid well he was very brilliant you know he is he is a brilliant man you know he whether you agree with what he his intent you know was and is his absolute Brilliance in intelligence there you know he rose incredibly quickly for good reason he he understood the Machinery of um of politics uh better than anyone else did and so he could manipulate that and for someone who was absolutely awful a lot of retail politics you know he had no interest in kissing babies or whatever he was very interested in the true mechanics of power and and how that works in his is nobody better at it than him part of the Sun [Music] [Applause] man what an adventure yeah it was something else I got to not go to school and travel about by myself and I had no idea just how unique that experience was at the time because I didn't realize that every film didn't build a bloody Runway the planes could land on in the middle of a Marshland in Spain or build a pagoda or build a you know huge hospital to build literally half a full-size Stadium out there I didn't realize every film didn't travel to China and have you know 10 000 extras up and down the Bund you know it wasn't until later when I was on much smaller films I went oh yeah hang on that was a big one which I think was great in that way because I didn't really feel any pressure and at that age I didn't really feel like uh an actual film was going to come out of it at the end I was just in the moment doing it animals and children are the best actors you can't compete with them and the reason is because they don't give a about the consequences and in many ways that was how I felt when I was making a part of the sun you know not through any intentional thing it just didn't even enter my mind b29 yeah the super Fortress what we call a hemisphere defense weapon Okinawa Philippines Tokyo is in bombing range now time to think of going home soon there's a great Purity to just playing a role and that's it because every kid does it every every kid I still consider that I play dress-up for a living you know and kids do that naturally it only gets spoiled when adults come in and ruin it by bringing money and expectations and you should do more Etc that's when things go wrong I never felt that while I was filming you know I mean there were times because I left my family Etc they weren't able to come with me so I you know I'd be like in the airport you know crying my eyes out going I don't want to go but when I got there man I was loving it and I was enjoying it no end but then it was it was when I started doing the Press I didn't get that I couldn't understand that and I didn't understand why I had to keep talking about the same thing all day long and that was it was starting to go insane and then people follow me around or whatever and so that was when I went oh no this isn't this isn't for me but I always focused on going yeah but I really did love doing it itself so let's try to figure it out so I can deal with this part of it and not uh have to stop doing the bit that I really do enjoy there's a price for everything and it's a it's a once you get your head around it it's a very small price to pay for getting to sell uh stories and I recognize and I'm so grateful for what I do get to to do Amsterdam how can I know this is you really in the picture uh yes sir so well I'm the doctor she's the nurse she's the attorney we all met in Belgium which if you were College where we met for the first time it's about someone who's in experimental medicine and likewise so with his brace you know it's something that he hates but he can't be without because he's got such terrible injuries you know to his back and his spine and everything like that so no I just kept on all the time because you'll see you see it through the the suit you know it's kind of like two little bumps of the metal sticking out you know and and if I can avoid acting I do avoid acting like if you can just really do it and be uncomfortable why bother pretending to be uncomfortable just be uncomfortable it was a practical thing because you know these these were very rudimentary back braces not like anything you would get today these were things that he had kind of made himself in the same way that he's working on creating medicine that can help these returning war vets who weren't given a damn bit of help you know they were meant to be returning Heroes and absolutely nobody treated him like that it was Despicable men who were all suffering from PTSD but nobody recognized that um a tool and these terrible terrible injuries but didn't have the right painkillers or anxiety pills or whatever David and I we wanted to create um characters that we loved that we wanted to hang out with characters that just refused to be beaten down by life despite everything that life had thrown at them that they remained optimistic refused to be cynical whatsoever I brows up was kind of our Mantra where is my eye Harold right here you leave me here with this invalid when you know very well that I think she should be hospitalized it's for her own good I do remember that both of them looked a bit shell-shocked on the very first day of work because they hadn't worked with David before we'll film The Script but then he will just throw different lines of people or he'll just change the lines no don't you say that you're going to say that now and he'll be laying on the floor underneath here and they know cruel during the scene over there and then he'll be up behind the camera over here and then he'll just say change everything and go do that and I love it but David would occasionally come to me when he saw someone was just sort of looking like a deer calling headlights and say oh can you go be the ambassador and just explain how we're going to do this and then everyone got into it and then it's really joyful and and just a very very satisfying experience so Margo and JD just embraced it you know and then I would go off and you know I'd telephone him and go sound like a stalker but I'd be like there's a dude I'm following down the street oh my God he's fantastic I'm going to use this for Bernie's like great and then I tell him that mannerisms from different people attitudes you know it was all kind of very baked in and over years so it was wonderful about that is that by the time you're actually filming it's really in your bones pale blue eye there's so many good actors I tell you lately I've been so blessed with the different amount of talented actors I've gone to work with and so it was a real pleasure to work with all them but let me just focus on one and that would be Harry melling because Harry is just a really superb actor and so I just I just enjoyed any day that we got to do scenes Together Scott Cooper and I have worked together now this is our third film I love working with Scott and this was something that we've been talking about since like uh 2012 that he had been put together he is prolific beyond belief in terms of his writing he went and did different things I went and did different things but just the period of it uh the gothic uh sort of crime um nature of it the sort of uh fun origin story of Edgar Allan Poe and what might have made him into such a master of the Macabre and why he was so comfortable and enjoyed that way of thinking and trying to think about okay well what what let's create a character that could have inspired all of that and that also keeps in the vein of an Edgar Allan Poe story itself as well so and I think so Scottsdale a superb job again with that

Channel: GQ

Views: 12,878,056

Keywords: american psycho, amsterdam, celebrity, christian bale, christian bale 2022, christian bale american psycho, christian bale amsterdam, christian bale dark knight, christian bale gq, christian bale gq cover, christian bale iconic characters, christian bale interview, christian bale pale blue eye, christian bale patrick bateman, dark knight, gq, gq christian bale, gq iconic, gq iconic characters, gq magazine, iconic characters, patrick bateman, the big short, the pale blue eye

Id: TRGHIN2PGIA

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/SPorterBridges]

Bale: "When there still was the Wall Street trading floors and everything, I went and visited, you know, all different levels of people at Wall Street. But the guys on the trading floor, when I arrived there before making the film, I got there and a bunch of 'em they were going 'Ahhh, Patrick Bateman!' and patting me on the back and going 'Oh, yeah! We love him!' And I was like, 'Yeaaah...ironically, right?' And they were like '...what do you mean?'"

lol

[u/Current-Position9988]

Let's see Paul Allen's most iconic characters.

[u/Master-Madman]

Sometimes these "breakdowns" feature people who have hardly even had iconic roles. Then you have actors like Bale who could've easily had a bunch more characters included. I'd loved to have seen him talk about Ford v Ferrari, The Prestige, Rescue Dawn and American Hustle.

[u/ShanaAfterAll]

Favorite part of this is finding out Heath Ledger smokes fools on a go-kart.

[u/JannTosh12]

“Christian Bale breaks down a few of his most iconic characters from 'American Psycho,' 'The Dark Knight' Trilogy, 'The Fighter,' 'The Machinist,' 'The Big Short,' 'Vice,' 'Empire of the Sun,' 'Amsterdam' and 'The Pale Blue Eye.' ”

Wtf! That’s barely scratching the surface of his career

[u/Jean_Lucs_Front_Yard]

Christian Bale. Confirmed Phil Collins fan.

[u/TheSunRogue]

His real accent just sounds so wrong.

[u/HufflepuffFluff]

Such a brilliant actor and good interview. Wish they would've touched on Hostiles, my favourite performance of his. Brilliant film.

[u/teleekom]

I love these career interviews, you really get a sense of who these actors are as people and Bale is just something else. You have to admire how serious he is about every role. Legend