"I've gone through periods of depression during lengthy hiatuses. Everybody wants a sense of purpose, and when your mind's set on doing one thing and it's not happening, you just feel useless." - Bale to GQ magazine, March 2007C
"It's important for an actor to have a certain amount of mystery. Personally, I love going to see a film where you can really watch a character. If you've just read some article about who the actor is sleeping with, that's gonna be in the back of your mind all the time you're watching the film. And obviously the more press you do, the less you're able to maintain that mystery." - Bale to Brendan Lemon in Interview, February 1998
"I don't really live anywhere. I break up my time between [L.A.] and London. When I'm in London, I don't want to spend any time in L.A., and when I'm in here [in L.A.], I actually enjoy it." - Bale quoted in Flaunt, Fall/Winter 1998
"I enjoy obsession. It makes you feel alive when you've got something that you're generally obsessed with and something to really fixate on. But I believe I've been able to maintain a kind of sense of humor with it, you know? An enjoyable playing with it, so that it hasn't really - I hope - affected any of my family in a negative way whatsoever." - Bale on some of the extreme measures he takes to prepare for his acting roles, to the The Los Angeles Times, Nov. 12, 2006
"I felt so dried up for a couple of years and wasn't interested in what I was doing. I was desperately struggling to be interested, but it wasn't happening. I know some of the emotion went out of my work, but I think I've managed to get it back. That's because I could risk making a complete fool of myself in front of the people I was working with, which is always when you give your best performances. You might say to yourself, What are you doing? But you just can't stop yourself doing it, and walking that line is the best feeling you can get as an actor." - Bale to Graham Fuller in Interview, December 1998
"I have a fear of being boring. The more high-profile I get, the less I can surprise people anymore. I've managed it very well. Nobody has a clue who I am, so it's worked." - Christian Bale to Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 11, 1996
"I like scary movies. As a kid I liked to take walks in the woods at night after a scary movie to see if I could get the hairs standing up on the back of my neck." - Bale quote in EW June 25/July 2, 2004
'd love to remain a secret and still work, but I also want people to see the movies I'm in and get a higher profile because of that. I like to think that as long as you continue choosing diverse roles, you can avoid becoming predictable.
Our Batman [Batman Begins] is centered on the early days. It's an explanation. It's certainly not Batman No. 5. It's a reinvention. We want you to forget there has ever been a Batman before this one.
[on Batman Begins] I've never felt like the Batman character in the films was given as much time as any of the villains. The villains were always the most interesting characters, too. Batman has always been this very bizarre, almost blind character running through the middle of the story. Our film is different.
[on Batman Begins] I contacted them. I heard they were doing some low-budget Batman not aimed at kids and I was tantalized. I had appreciated the Batman movies, but I wasn't really a fan and I didn't know the TV series. But I read some of the graphic novels, and they were very dark and very interesting.
I had spent weeks staring at the wall in my house out of depression because of things that had gone wrong and the choices I had made. When I read "The Machinist" [The Machinist], I just went, "Wow! This is perfect". I was having dreams about the character and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I felt like this one was going to save my arse, and pull me out of the depressed state I had got into.
I did other things, but my heart was never in it. A lot of actors say that theater's the thing for them. And that's great, and I'm not one to speak with any authority about it because of not having done it properly. For me, movies are what I love.
At first, I was somewhat hesitant to do the role [Batman Begins]. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, as clear as day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened, and this little boy saw me. He couldn't have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me. He hugged me, and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said, "You're my hero." And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job, but that I had made the right decision to play Batman. And I've never looked back on my the decision to play Batman since.
[on playing Batman] You couldn't pull it off unless you became a beast inside that suit.
I only sound intelligent when there's a good scriptwriter around.
He's a messed-up individual, as well. He's got all sorts of issues. He's just as twisted and messed-up as the villains he's fighting, and that's part of the beauty of the whole story. - on the character of Batman
I don't think I was particularly in need of superheroes. I never had any fascination with Superman or Spider-Man or a Batman kind of character. If it happened at all, it was imagined characters that I had invented. My dad was a role model for me. He was a fascinating man. There was intrigue and entertainment growing up with him. He gave me an edict that I still pursue: "Life should never be boring."
Real Life Quotes
[interview in "Spin" magazine, March 1996] An actor should never be larger than the film he's in.
[on dealing with the resulting media attention of Empire of the Sun at age 13] It was horrific. I was almost crying in interviews and running away during press conferences, pretending I was going to the bathroom and just disappearing.
[on the sudden fame that resulted after Empire of the Sun] I enjoyed making the film, but I was shocked when I received all the attention when I got home to Bournemouth. Girls were all over me, boys wanted to fight me, and I was being asked to open local fêtes when all I wanted to do was ride my BMX bike in the woods. I told my parents I wasn't interested in doing anything again because the attention ruined it.
I don't want to know about the lives of other actors and I don't want people to know too much about me. If we don't know about the private lives of other actors, that leaves us as clean slates when it comes to playing characters. That's the point, they can create these other characters and I can believe them. I think if you're a good enough actor, that's the way to longevity in the film business. Keep everybody guessing.
I started my career without fans.
[on his 63-pound weight loss for "The Machinist" (The Machinist)] I had a stupid kind of feeling of invincibility, like, "I can do it, I can manage it". I really did feel like I hit this point of enlightenment.
I always like that. Whenever there's a project where everyone's going, "Oooooh, it's a bit dodgy", I always like it. If you actually look at it, there tends not to be anything risky at all. Why did I start acting in the first place? I didn't do it to be mediocre or to please everybody all the time.
I'd love to remain a secret and still work, but I also want people to see the movies I'm in and get a higher profile because of that. I like to think that as long as you continue choosing diverse roles, you can avoid becoming predictable.
It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.
[on his transformation into Patrick Bateman for American Psycho] The character is so vain and obsessed with his looks. While the psychology of the character was something that I could perform, you can't fake the physicality. Being English, I tend to enjoy going down to the pub far more than going to the gym, so it was very unnatural for me. I just had to convince myself that I loved it, which was the most difficult thing about playing this part. Working out is incredibly boring. I swear it's true that the bigger your muscles get, the fewer brain cells you have. I found I had to stop thinking when I was in the gym because if I thought about it, I'd realize how ridiculous it was that I was pumping iron when I could've been out having a drink and a cigarette and enjoying some lunch. I did three hours a day for six weeks with a personal trainer and some time before that. I ate an awful lot during training and then almost nothing during filming.
The only thing that I'm obsessed with is sleeping and, actually, it is more than an obsession, it is a pleasure. I love sleeping so much that I could do it 12 hours a day if I didn't have to turn on the alarm clock . . . and still, sometimes . . .
Our Batman [Batman Begins] is centered on the early days. It's an explanation. It's certainly not Batman No. 5. It's a reinvention. We want you to forget there has ever been a Batman before this one.
[on Batman Begins] I've never felt like the Batman character in the films was given as much time as any of the villains. The villains were always the most interesting characters, too. Batman has always been this very bizarre, almost blind character running through the middle of the story. Our film is different.
[on Batman Begins] I contacted them. I heard they were doing some low-budget Batman not aimed at kids and I was tantalized. I had appreciated the Batman movies, but I wasn't really a fan and I didn't know the TV series. But I read some of the graphic novels, and they were very dark and very interesting.
I spent about three weeks in Chicago last July doing night shoots [for Batman Begins]. It's a great city, but the humidity was tough under the Batsuit. Uh, it got a little bad. It's hot enough in the Batsuit, let alone in the Chicago heat.
I needed money because I had just bought a house, but I just kept saying, "I really can't do another movie that I know is not going to turn out the way I want it to, and that I have to make a lot of concessions in my head for".
For me, there's a bigger risk trying ['Batman Begins (2005)_]. Ultimately, the big point was that [Christopher Nolan], who you would not expect to be doing that kind of movie, was going to direct it, which is exactly what I was looking for, because you want to do something totally different from the other Batman movies. I always thought there could be a really good movie made about Batman and when I heard that Chris was doing it I thought, "Well, he's not a director that you would expect, therefore you're going to get the unexpected from him". I think there's a great potential for going very dark with it, it's a fascinating character, very complex psychologically, which I've never seen done. You know, you have the two extremes, which are both very good. You can either go the very camp Adam West TV series thing [Batman], which was great in its own way, or you can go more the way of the graphic "Dark Knight" novels which delve somewhat deeper.
I had spent weeks staring at the wall in my house out of depression because of things that had gone wrong and the choices I had made. When I read "The Machinist" [The Machinist], I just went, "Wow! This is perfect". I was having dreams about the character and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I felt like this one was going to save my arse, and pull me out of the depressed state I had got into.
I did other things, but my heart was never in it. A lot of actors say that theater's the thing for them. And that's great, and I'm not one to speak with any authority about it because of not having done it properly. For me, movies are what I love.
At first, I was somewhat hesitant to do the role [Batman Begins]. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, as clear as day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened, and this little boy saw me. He couldn't have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me. He hugged me, and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said, "You're my hero." And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job, but that I had made the right decision to play Batman. And I've never looked back on my the decision to play Batman since.
[on playing Batman] You couldn't pull it off unless you became a beast inside that suit.
I only sound intelligent when there's a good scriptwriter around.
I'm English. Our dentistry is not world famous. But I made sure I got moldings of my old teeth beforehand because I miss them.
I don't think I'm like any of the characters I've played. They're all really far from who I am.
You can't help but find that violence is endlessly fascinating--and I mean true violence, not action-movie violence, just because it is used as the answer to so many problems. We're all taught as kids not to be violent, but you can't help but also see that violence is what works very often. Bullies thrive.
I think there's a kind of pretentiousness to the idea that serious work is only found in low-budget independent movies--I can't stand that snobbery.
I like being kept in the dark myself. You know, like mushrooms: Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit. See, I think that's an enjoyable vegetable to be.
At the time that [Christopher Nolan] asked me to do it [Batman Begins] I actually couldn't do one push-up. They sent me to a trainer, who was having to hold my T-shirt at the back just to pull me up. I've come a long way from that.
[on filming Batman films during the summer] I'm not really looking forward to wearing a black rubber suit in the summertime in humid Chicago. If you see a pool of sweat through the city, follow it and you will find me.
[describing director Christopher Nolan's method for filming Batman Begins] We tend to shoot at night like some kind of covert operation. So, we have minimal people actually seeing me in that way.
[on being asked if he knew how big a flop Newsies was] You say something bad about "Newsies" and you have an awful lot of people to answer to.
He's a messed-up individual, as well. He's got all sorts of issues. He's just as twisted and messed-up as the villains he's fighting, and that's part of the beauty of the whole story. - on the character of Batman
I'm accustomed to not having any map for my life. I'd be reaching for an Uzi if I knew what was going to happen every day. If anybody tells me I shouldn't jump, of course all I want to do is jump and show it can be done.
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