28 / WWW.SHORTLIST.COM
FACING OFF WITH
CHRISTIAN BALE
The star of this summer’s biggest film slips out of the Batsuit to talk
to ShortList’s Stephen Applebaum about his take on the world’s darkest superhero,
Heath Ledger’s legacy and what makes him angry
he world knows surprisingly
little about Christian Bale,
but here’s what we found
out through the wonder
of research. He is Welsh.
He was in Empire Of The
Sun as a child actor. He
doesn’t eat red meat. His
mother was in a circus. He rides horses.
It is apparent, though, that Bale, 34, has
built his career on keeping a tight lid on his
personal life, instead preferring to allow his
performances to speak for themselves.
As such, he’s gained a reputation as one of
Hollywood’s most dedicated and credible,
yet incredibly private, actors.
He famously puts himself through arduous
physical transformations for his roles and
insists on staying in character – accents
and all – throughout the entirety of filming
and any promotional work afterwards.
So, as we prepared to interview the
enigmatic Mr Bale, we found ourselves
somewhat intrigued as to what the man
beneath the suit would really be like…
Have you always been a Batman fan?
Yes, but only of the graphic novels that I’d
read, and I read those shortly before making
Batman Begins. The TV series is a total spoof
of what Bob Kane created, but I do like it.
Do you have a favourite Caped Crusader?
Adam West [from the TV series], because his
is so far away from where we’re coming from.
We read online that you auditioned for
the role of Robin in Batman Forever, which
went to Chris O’Donnell. Is that true?
Look, I love the crap that is on the internet
“Hi, it’s Mr Chuckles
and assistant, here
for the kid’s party”
and on TV – everywhere – it’s not just on the
Net. Most of the time I never bother trying
to put anything right because I’m an actor,
and the whole point is it doesn’t matter
what’s the truth. But I do have to take a stand
on that because I would never have bloody
auditioned to play Robin.
We were wondering if you had a lucky
escape…
It wasn’t a lucky escape because I would
never have got myself in that position in
the first place [laughs].
The Dark Knight as a film seems very
intense, but were there any funny
moments on set?
There always are on the more dark material,
because you need all the extremes of
a character, you’ve always got to laugh.
So, the very first scene I had with Heath –
where we’re bloody freaks and both taking
it absolutely seriously – we were in a room
with two-way mirrors and there were
several people watching from behind
the glass. We couldn’t see them, all we
could see were our reflections and it
became hysterical because it was kind
of insane, you know? It’s kind of the laughter
of madness, which is entirely appropriate
for both of our characters. I had such
good fun working with Heath.
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.