"I'm a total mess!" Christian Bale on Amsterdam, American Psycho and singing with Taylor Swift

the Wonders Christian how good are you with compliments taking compliments that is oh let's try let's try it okay I've always wanted to say this but you are and this is difficult working for the BBC so gosh darn expletive deleted good oh thank you sir I'll take that very well that will help me get through the rest of my day thank you much very much appreciate it it's truly firmly meant Barrington how are you here you go dark hazel green box of six okay Navy thank you I do want to ask you a kind of weird question though to begin with which is based on our YouTube comment beneath the first trailer for Amsterdam right someone wrote this if I had a nickel for every time Christian Bale portrayed a guy with a glass eye two nickels I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice [Laughter] that weird I mean yes they make a very good point I suppose yes Michael Murray I mean there were very specific identifiers extremely recognizable and Burt Berenson why would you possibly think that was us stop me if I'm wrong but you trained yourself or made your eye look the other direction to play Michael you know what that sounds far more impressive I might have accidentally done it a few times you know sort of as a kid you tried doing the kind of cross eyes and then can you how much can you move it around and all that and then maybe occasionally you know it happened and we managed to catch you on camera but there really wasn't much uh um practice involved or sometimes happy accidents I'm going on and on my wife told me I need to share more what is the trick though to Goods glass eye acting because not only do you have to convey having one yeah you have to have it punched out on a couple of occasions in this movie yeah numerous occasions right we find ourselves in a situation where we're accused of killing someone which is not true and sometimes not just punched out but also just he's an experimental medicine maker who occasionally just pancakes from his own experiments and I might come popping out from there so it happened on numerous occasions and uh if I can avoid acting I do and so yeah we just had a lens in I really couldn't see anything out of their eyes throughout the entire film and so no acting required excellent and you've got a ton of mannerisms with this character but of course do you have any favorites because you've talked about being baked into this role right what are the favorite little ingredients there's a definite bit of Peter Falk there's a definite there's there's quite a few bits of my son uh in there um uh stuff there's uh Emmanuel are basically the chibo yeah the DP there's all sorts of people in there because it was six years of putting this whole script together with David for me to think about I've forgotten many of The Inspirations how does putting the back brace on inhabiting this role compare maybe in a makeup chair to gore earlier this year uh oh so much quicker than Gore is that the necro sword that's cool I've only ever read about it stories this is going to hurt but Gore very comfortable all tunics and free flowing you know clothing and all that just you got to put the fangs in and the acrylic nails I can't do anything as soon as I put acrylic nails on tell me about this you know I don't know how people manage it it's amazing but my wonderful friend Chris Gallagher who put me together for vice who put me together as Bert as well and uh pale blue eye and uh great company and incredible Talent can I say also thank you for however it happened for helping us with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon oh how did I help you with that this movie reminding everybody oh with so many people in it that it's like now it becomes it's all too easy it's too this movie make it less degrees I think it might have to be four now because it's one film Christian Bale Margot Robbie John David Washington Chris Rock Annie Taylor Joy the list goes on and on and on Rami Malek Taylor Swift I've even actually gone to the six degrees website right in order to get to Kevin Bacon Christian Bale Midsummer Night's Dream Hollister Flockhart telling lies in America Kevin Bacon oh there you go how many was that that was just two well Margot Robbie as well too too you've broken the game well done sorry I've ruined it you do work with an astonishing group of people here who is the best at telling anecdotes at the canteen I had to ask Chris Rock um no I couldn't ask him to stop because he won't stop right get a dead white man in a box not even a casket doesn't even have a top on it in a pine box of old wood what do you think's gonna get in trouble here and also he hadn't performed for quite some time and we have a scene where there's extras and there's a stage and so he was getting up on the stage and just going ah he'd been down to do this for a couple of years and he was letting it go and you could see how joyful he's the opposite of me like I'm like I'm pleased I don't want to get behind a mic I'm a big fan of Chris's of his stand-up and first two days chatting away with him couldn't get enough of talking realized oh God I'm starting to be Christian and not but you know I'm starting to just be a fan here talking to Chris so I went to him I went dude I'm gonna have to stop talking with you because otherwise Bert's going to disappear very quickly and so uh I had to sacrifice that you know my grandfather shot a guy in the face and he got shot in the face separate occasions separate occasions not the same guy and it all worked out you've got kids where they most excited about you working with Taylor Swift um I actually didn't even sell them until it was a few days afterwards and having a Taylor Swift song came on and I went oh I was singing with her the other day and they went uh what you know like I don't know if I can talk about this I'm not buying that he died of natural causes I think they were less kind of impressed with me than felt bad for her that she had to sing with me because I sing around the house a lot and it ain't pretty wow okay um was this singing on and off camera or just you know you're walking to the canteen started whistling some tunes I do uh sing a lot to myself but I usually just look like a madman just sort of stumbling around I had to sing on stage um it was I've noticed abbreviated I'm not for the films um but then yes the scene where JD and myself and Taylor did have to sing around the sing very intimately and it was all sounding all right um but that was because I was singing so it just sounded all right and JD was singing and we were looking at each other and barely getting the lyrics right and definitely being off Pitch and then David said hey but how about JD and Christians just shut up you're like yeah good idea and then Taylor just sang and we all suddenly realized that we'd just been destroying this Angelic voice all day long but really quite something where somebody has that natural gift is it's quite remarkable and when they're standing here next year singing like that Goosebumps is somebody watching me I don't know if I can talk about that of all of your movies what is your favorite fight because in this one you get some pretty quick ones I got punched yeah I was there for that one but most recently I re-watched Ford vs for Ferrari and yeah I do like that one out on the street yeah that is because it's just so ridiculous yeah and I'm sorry sincerely the Jack-in-the-Box now knock it off Ken we got work to do and this car ain't going to build itself ah and I've taken on board off of that scene using this hmm you want me to apologize hmm that well no that you're right it's that one because that's that's what came to mind immediately yes I just look I've not got any notes for what Nolan did but if more of the Batman fights had one of the characters holding some groceries in a bag it just adds a bit more yeah next time next time okay next time this is a weird one going back to keeping your accent keeping in character with Chris Rock are you still ever keeping your character's accent in interviews no I'm a total mesh I'm a total mix-up like I I don't truly people will go oh he's a method I'm not method I don't know what kind of actor I am I never I did a couple of classes at YWCA off of Tottenham Court Road that was it right so I don't know what I do I just make it up as I go along and I figure out what I do know is I'm terrible at just turning accents on like that but if you actually listen half the time when people do behind the scenes I'm half English half the character because it just takes too much energy to be in character all the time I don't do that yeah do you like that then if I go go and say that thing or not I just kind of keep one foot in both or complete me your garbage you kills for money don't talk like one of them you're not when I was doing Batman I just went oh God no one's gonna buy it if I've got an Englishman but then if you listen to the interview something a really bad American accent throughout most of it you know this is a more mature Bruce Wayne this is a Batman who absolutely is still boring with himself but it's somebody who has come to have power I can't help it there's just my English and it's coming through because I'm not actually playing the character and I feel like a tit if I'm just completely doing that voice so I'm I'm actually in my family I'm like the worst person at accents ever I have to study and study and study hence why I sort of maintain it but I only say sort of because it's quite embarrassing when I see behind the scenes stuff thing you do yourself an injustice who of all the people you've ever worked with in your career is most likely to make you crack up on set because in this move you've got Mike Myers it's all right drinks on me literally you've got Chris Rock there's so many bloody great actors yeah I mean I mean Chris was definitely that's what I did have to say to him can't I've got to plug my ears um uh uh but there's so many during the scene um as well David too makes me crack up each time it was a it was a very fun and funny set to be on and I really have to watch for that because perhaps due to me not having any training once I do start giggling I can't stop until everyone is just very pissed off with me what have been the worst giggle fits in your career where you've gone oh I've lost it oh yeah no I've done it multiple times yeah yeah that's why I do I when I know it's about to maybe Karma I just go walking away if I imagine myself ever playing you know your character in American Psycho I would have to take so many scenes and just going I am leaving now yes I cannot say this again do you like Phil Collins I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album yes it's too funny no but that was that was a really interesting film because I I Mary Herron and I the director we knew that we were the right people for each other to make the film because she asked me to come audition she just had a little handheld camera in her apartment and we just couldn't get through the scenes without crying with laughter so and her camera shaking and it's like the worst camera work ever um but we both knew like okay we both think this is some of the funniest most ridiculous satirical [ __ ] that we've ever come across look at that subtle halfway coloring thickness of it oh my God it even has a watermark and then we also had the crew who either were on that side or who quit and left and it was there was sort of no in between at all so yeah very divisive peace you like Huey Lewis on the news they're okay have you ever had any Wags any clever people at weddings who are behind the DJ desk and start playing Huey Lewis and you have to go yeah no stop that in 87 Huey released this four the most accomplished album I think they're Undisputed Masterpiece is hip to be square you're like we'll have less of that thanks no unfortunately I don't get invited to many weddings another way of solving the problem Christian such pleasure thank you so much excuse me thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video don't forget to subscribe and click the Bell icon to keep up to date you can listen to my radio on movies and TV podcast screen time on BBC sounds and you can find these interviews in full on BBC iPlayer by searching movies with Ali plum

Channel: BBC Radio 1

Views: 260,683

Keywords: christian bale, amsterdam, taylor swift, bbc, iplayer, radio 1, radio one, ali plumb, movies with ali plumb, ali plumb interview, christian bale interview, margot robbie, rami malek, kevin bacon, batman, the dark knight, christopher nolan, the big short, american psycho, patrick bateman, chris rock, ford v ferrari, matt damon, mike myers, marvel, mcu, gorr, thor, love and thunder, thor 4, marvel cinematic universe

Id: 3reVPNBVsKU

Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2022