PROFILE CHRISTIAN BALE:It is often impossible to separate this brooding, intense personality from the film roles he inhabits. That's bad news for the family of the latest human 'Terminator' hero, writes DONALD CLARKE
IN EARLY February, the world’s film journalists opened their inboxes to discover a surprising e-mail from Sony Pictures.
"Christian Bale made an exclusive statement on an LA radio show regarding the 'incident' on the Terminator Salvationset," the text explained. "He is very apologetic and admits that he was out of line. To listen, please click on the link below." For a publicist to draw a journalist's attention to an 'incident' involving one of their stars is akin to a gamekeeper handing a poacher an assault rifle and pointing towards the nearest woodcock. When Randy Sparklepants slaps a waiter or drives his jeep over a pensioner, the studios tend to prefer the news to remain discreetly unreported.
Some conspiracy theorists suggested that this particular "incident" might actually have been staged by Sony to help promote Terminator Salvation, the fourth instalment in the popular cyborg franchise, but the truth was, surely, a deal more mundane. The only film enthusiasts who had failed to hear the notorious recording of Bale bawling profanely at one Shane Hurlbut, Terminator Salvation's director of photography, were those without internet connections or functioning cochleas. Speaking in his character's American accent, Bale, born in Wales 35 years ago, employed language that might cause a longshoreman to blush as he berated the unfortunate Hurlbut for blundering into shot during a key scene. Aware that the recording was already squawking out of laptops everywhere, Sony felt a degree of damage limitation was in order.
The bust-up came just six months after another, potentially more damaging, controversy in London's Dorchester Hotel. Either side of promotional duties for The Dark Knight, in which he played Batman for the second time, Bale spent four hours at a police station discussing an alleged assault on his mother. No further action was taken, but the two episodes helped make Bale into the punchline of a great many unwanted jokes. The actor would not have enjoyed the episode of Family Guyin which Peter Griffin, the obese hero of that animated series, found himself at the wrong end of the Hurlbut rant. "Do you punch your mother with that mouth?" Griffin quipped.
THE TRUTHis that odd things – some tragic, some comically absurd – seem to follow Christian Bale around. Did you know that his mother was a circus performer? Did you know that his late father, a businessman and animal rights activist, was married to the prestigious feminist Gloria Steinem? It is, perhaps, no wonder that he remains cautious of the press. There are just too many questions to ask.
Yet as Terminator Salvationlumbers into view, Bale retains his reputation as one of the most gloomily charismatic actors working today. Fanatically dedicated to his profession, cautious about revealing his inner motivations, he has a metallic intensity about him that recalls great cinematic tough guys such as Richard Widmark or Alain Delon.
In July, he will appear as Melvin Purvis, the man who hunted down John Dillinger, in Michael Mann's unbearably promising Public Enemies.(Johnny Depp plays the gangster.) For all his oddities, Bale looks to have made the summer of 2009 his own.
He has had quite some time to get used to the pressures of the business. His parents moved a great deal when he was a child and the budding actor, the youngest of four children, got to spend parts of his youth in Portugal and the US, before the family settled down in Bournemouth.
Given his mother's experience as a circus clown, it is not altogether surprising that Bale drifted into performance. When he was eight, he landed a part in a fabric softener commercial and two years later he appeared opposite Rowan Atkinson in the West End production of The Nerd. In 1986, he found himself acting with Amy Irving, then Steven Spielberg's wife, in a forgotten TV movie entitled Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. Irving recommended him to Spielberg and Bale found himself cast as Jim Graham, a child dislocated by the Japanese invasion of Singapore, in the director's adaption of JG Ballard's Empire of the Sun.
Jim is asked to grow up fast and there is, in the mature composure of the young Bale's performance, hints of the gravity he would bring to films such as The Dark Knight, American Psychoand, yes, Terminator Salvation. It was, however, by no means certain that he could translate his juvenile success into a successful adult career. The gutters of Sunset Boulevard are clogged with drug-addled actors who were once teenage sensations.
He managed to secure a healthy, if unspectacular amount of work over the following decade – Jim Hawkins opposite Charlton Heston's Long John Silver in Treasure Island; Laurie in Little Women– but it was not until the turn of the century that it became clear Bale was here to stay.
Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho,Bret Easton Ellis's gruesome evisceration of 1980s decadence, was released to mixed reviews in 2000. But virtually every critic drooled over Bale's turn as Patrick Bateman, the brand-obsessed businessman and serial killer, and the film has steadily gathered a significant cult following. The performance exhibits all the key Bale specialities: gimlet-eyed intensity; a capacity for volcanic rage; that uncomfortable, undeniable charisma. Word has it that the studio would have preferred the featherweight Leonardo DiCaprio in the role. Cinemagoers got lucky.
OVER THEsucceeding years, Bale's reputation has sustained his advance by applying two different kinds of seriousness to his career: he invests himself utterly in his performances and he takes enormous care in selecting good scripts and great directors.
The most notorious example of his dedication to acting came in 2004 when he lost 60 pounds to play the emaciated hero of Brad Anderson's admired The Machinist. Like other method purists such as Robert De Niro and Daniel Day Lewis, Bale allows his characters' attitudes and mannerisms to bleed into his daily life. Sibi Blazic, his wife and the mother of his four-year-old daughter, must have a very great deal to put up with.
“I never usually know at the time,” he said when asked whether remaining in character can annoy the poor woman. “But I certainly know later when she or my friends will say: ‘Man, we just couldn’t stand you around that time. We’re really glad you’re finished with that project.’ But sometimes she’ll miss a character.”
Over the past decade, he has managed to work with a hugely impressive collection of the world's greatest film-makers. Todd Haynes directed him in Velvet Goldmineand I'm Not There. Werner Herzog, the eccentric German seer, provided him with a peculiar action role in Rescue Dawn. Terrence Malick, one of the American masters, cast him in the underrated The New World. Many critics regard Michael Mann, the man behind Public Enemies, as the best director of action in the US.
So many critics were slightly puzzled when Bale agreed to play John Connor, leader of a human rebellion against a megalomaniac computer network, in the fourth film in the Terminatorseries. After all, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who originated the role of the Terminator himself, was busy running California and McG, the film's economically named director, was best known for directing the insubstantial Charlie's Angelsmovies. What has become of Bale's rigorous vetting procedure? It seems that McG (real name Joseph McGinty Nichol) did a darn good sales pitch.
“I had this guy sitting there saying, ‘Christian, didn’t somebody ever take a leap of faith on you to do something radically different than you’ve ever done before? Give me that opportunity.’ So I’m thinking, ‘Oh, f**k!’,” Bale explained.
AS IThappens, Terminator Salvationturns out to be pretty impressive. Messier and more deliberately ugly than the perfunctory third episode, the picture will serve only to further boost one of the most promising careers in Hollywood.
Still, some professional challenges do remain. For all his undeniable gifts, Bale has yet to prove himself in a role where he doesn’t scare the pants off the audience. His version of Batman is almost as sinister as The Joker. John Connor is not a particularly cuddly sort of hero.
Will we ever see him occupying the same gondola as Kate Hudson in a romantic comedy? Would Disney ever cast him as Uncle Barney in a talking-dog comedy? It seems unlikely. When he appears on screen, many viewers, remembering previous roles and previous controversies, will have just one thought in their minds: I wouldn’t like him to punch me with that mouth.
CV Christian Bale
Who is he?Charismatic, intense British actor who has, in the past decade, played a grim Batman in The Dark Knight, a grimmer lunatic in American Psycho and a one-legged (grim) cowboy in 3:10 to Yuma.
Why is he in the news?Cyborg thriller
Terminator Salvation, in which he plays the human hero, will be opening worldwide on June 3rd. Michael Mann's Public Enemies, featuring Bale as John Dillinger's nemesis, comes our way a month later.
Most appealing characteristicAlmost supernatural ability to immerse himself in the most unlikeable characters.
Least appealing characteristicApparent irascibility – perhaps brought on by carrying his roles around with him – that led him to yell endless obscenities at a cinematographer and caused him to be interviewed by police concerning an alleged assault on his mother.
Most likely to sayDon't you f**king look that way at me, you f**king piece of f**king horse s**t!
Least likely to sayIf you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all.