14 DAY TRIAL // Christian Bale is considered a favorite for this year’s Oscar for Best Male Performance for his role in the upcoming drama “The Fighter,” also starring Mark Wahlberg. In the December 2010 issue of Esquire magazine, the actor talks acting, marketing and how much of a sissy job his is.
Anyone who’s read one magazine article about Bale knows that he’s not the easiest person to work with, regardless of how nice he may try to play with others.
Esquire too notes that, if anything, Bale doesn’t like to take questions – he’d rather ask them. He also hates talking about the “process” about making a film, reveals that he believes he’s an actor only because he’s bored, and how he has become very guarded in his relationship with the media.
However, underneath this rough and rather impolite façade is actually a man who, as per his own words, would rather act but not do media interviews and promoting – he just doesn’t have the guts to stand up to movie studios.
“Well, it’s also just I’m bored [expletive] with myself,” Christian says. “I have a very sissy job, where I go to work and get my hair done, and people do my makeup, and I go and say lines and people spoil me rotten,” he adds.
Bale, as fans must know, was never the one to shy away from calling it as he saw it.
“And everyone has that kind of curiosity of how far can you go, how far can you take it. I think it’s always good testing yourself. With various things that could be incredibly unimpressive to other people, but there’s some meaning to it within yourself – and also stupid, which many people called me during that time [laughs],” he says.
Also stupid was his massive weight loss for “The Machinist,” one that earned him quite a reputation - and lots of admirers with both critics and fans.
Of course, it would be very unlike Bale to say he was method acting.
“That was just a kind of an [expletive] seeing if he could have the discipline to mentally control himself for an amount of time,” Bale says of dropping 63 pounds for the role, speaking of himself in the third person.
The reason why Bale is so guarded about doing interviews (aside from the not-surprising occurrence when he picked up magazines to see his own words twisted to mean something he didn’t intend to say) is because he believes the “magic” of the movies is lost if one talks too much about it.
“Everybody talks about the process too much. The interesting thing about a movie is the movie. I don’t get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made, and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can’t help but feel like this reduces it a little bit,” Bale says.
Those interested in checking out the full Esquire piece (which is definitely a very interesting read), please refer here. Those who, like Bale, believe too much promotion can kill a film, keep an eye out for “The Fighter”: it’s out in theaters on December 10.
