«All the roles I got were roles that DiCaprio turned down.» 15 facts about Christian Bale

We study the career of the master of reincarnations.

One of the best actors of our time was born on January 30, 1974. Collected facts about the career and life of the Oscar winner.

1. Christian Bale was born in the small town of Haverfordwest in Wales and lived there all his childhood. And yet the actor prefers to call himself an Englishman.
2. Almost the entire Bale family are creative people. Among them are comedians, circus performers, musicians and directors. His father worked as a commercial airline pilot.
3. For the first time on the screen, little Christian appeared in the series «Anastasia: Anna’s Secret»where he played Tsarevich Alexei. This helped the teenager get the lead role in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.
4. The 12-year-old actor passed the casting and overtook 4,000 applicants. He was advised by Spielberg’s wife, Amy Irving, who played opposite Bale on the show. The iconic director labeled the child as “little Steve McQueen,” which is why the actor is still embarrassed.
5. Little Christian was so crazy about the popularity that had fallen then that he went into the shadows for a couple of years. He was persuaded to return to Kenneth Branagh, who was engaged in the film adaptation of Shakespeare’s «Henry V».
6. The 90s were a very quiet time for Bale. He rarely acted, and many roles were taken away from him. There were many applicants for the main role in Titanic: in addition to Leo DiCaprio, McConaughey and Bale were also good. The latter was unhooked by Cameron, because he did not want two British to play the roles of Americans (the first was Winslet).
7. The turning point of his career was his role in American Psycho. Bale received it only after the refusal of the same DiCaprio, and the author of the novel Bret Easton Ellis and director Mary Harron fought for him with the studio. The image of a maniac, nihilist and materialist Bateman made him a star of the first magnitude, although 4 front teeth had to be replaced.
8. In the next big film, Bale surpassed that image. His hero from «Equilibrium» still holds the 4th place in terms of the number of murders per frame in one tape (118). Of modern films, only John Wick managed to overtake him in the sequel.
9. For the role in the drama The Machinist, the actor lost 28.5 kg — up to 55 kg! Bale wanted to better understand his character and «be in his shoes»: in addition to extreme weight loss, the actor constantly lacked sleep. How did he lose that much weight? His menu included only coffee, cigarettes, an apple and a can of canned tuna. To curb his insatiable hunger, Christian began to smoke.
10. The actor became Batman thanks to his emaciated appearance at the casting. Christopher Nolan was shocked by the physical condition of the actor, but offered the role to him. The director explained this by saying that if Bale lost so much weight for the role in The Machinist, then for the Batman films he would do anything. Indeed, the actor gained 45 kg in a few months.
11. Bale set a condition for the director. No Robin in the films. The bzik can be explained by the fact that once Christian was casting for the place of Robin in the Batman Forever movie. The role went to Chris O’Donnell, but rather ruined his career. Nolan agreed, but left a few references to Bats’ assistant.
12. He is unhappy with his performance in The Dark Knight. Christian wanted to show a Batman on the edge and ready for violent things. But according to him, Heath Ledger completely overshadowed him. However, they were friends, and Bale is not at all offended. He took the death of Ledger hard.
13. The actor has a bad temper. The masses learned about the feature during the filming of Terminator Salvation. The network got an audio recording where Bale yells at the operator, swears and demands to be fired. The actor apologized for the incident, and the assistant director explained that Bale played in a very emotional scene, and someone else’s mistake pissed him off.
14. Over the years, the actor experiments less with weight. But there are exceptions: for «American Hustle» Bale began to weigh 92 kg, and by no means a muscle! A few years later, the actor put on 20 kg for the role of US Vice President Dick Cheney in Power.
15. Christian has been married to former model and makeup artist Sandra Blazic since 2000. The couple has two children: daughter Emmaline and son Joseph.