was born in l‘)74 in llaverfordwest. Wales. and grew tip in Bournemouth. lingland. as well as Portugal and California. It has no bearing on his screen persona to know that Bale's father. David. was a commercial pilot who managed his son‘s career for a time. that his mother is Jenny James. a former circus dancer. that Uncle Rex was an actor and his grandfather a stand-up comedian — beyond the fact that Bale hails from a showbiz family. Does it make any difference to your perception of Bale that his father remarried. and that his stepmother is the author and feminist icon (iloria Steinem. who once went undercover as a Play/iav bunny and who likened Larry lilynt to Adolf Hitler‘.’ Or that Bale married Sibi Blazic — who he met during the making of Little Wmnen when star Winona Ryder handpicked him for the role of Laurie and he met her former personal assistant — on the day before his birthday in 2000'? I think not.
Maintaining a clean slate post-Batman Begins.
on the other hand. may be the toughest hurdle of
Bale's career. and the true test of his skill as an actor. something he‘s evidently aware of. ‘The only reason.‘ Bale says. ‘it would be harder [to play other roles] is if people only ever saw me as Batman. Btit that‘s down to me. lf 1 can‘t convincingly portray other characters after that then that's my own fault.
‘But in terms of getting those movies made. any extra attention I get because of Batman is a good thing. The .ert'ltlltisl took a year to get made between getting the script and filming: .-tnreriean Psyeho took a year and a half. And that was because the directors held out for me in those roles. They could have gone with somebody better known. and got it made just like
16 THE LIST 113,1 Mar .105
Body of evidence: The Machinist (above). American Psycho (below right) and Empire of the Sun.
that. So. I’m hoping after Batman I might actually be able to do more movies like this. I
certainly feel more comfortable with the likes of
Ameriean I’syr'lro. Velvet Goldmine or The Machinist. Those are the ones I absolutely know I‘m going to enjoy working on.
Whether Bale will be able to maintain his grip on his career remains to be seen. His next two films fall somewhere between low budget indie/arthouse and cornmercial/prestigious productions. The first is The Mac War/(l. an epic about the British eolonising of North America. written and directed by the great auteur Terrence Malick (Bar/lands. Days of Heaven. The Thin Red Line); the second is Harsh Tina's. a gritty drama set in south central Los Angeles. directed by David Ayer. whose previous film. 'I’raining Day. won Den/el Washington an Oscar.
‘l‘m not averse to a big pay cheque.‘ says Bale. ‘If you get a big payday. you can choose the projects you want to do. You don‘t ever get into the situation where you have to do something because your house is about to be repossessed. But the ones I tend to gravitate towards don‘t give you a big payday. And I don‘t want to get into that comfort zone. It's not what frlmmaking is about. I love stories about people going to an extreme and working hard. that idea of the guitarist playing until his fingers are bleeding. The image of somebody busting their arse for what they love doing. And if you do that. you feel like you‘ve accomplished more at the end of the day than if you sit around getting lazy and fat.‘
The Machinist is on general release from Fri 18 Mar. Batman Begins is released on Fri 24 Jun.
BODY MORPH
Christian Bale is by no means the first actor to have transformed his body for a role.
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