3rdgensooner
11/17/2010, 12:08 PM
Christian Bale May Kill Someone Yet (http://www.esquire.com/features/christian-bale-interview-1210#ixzz15Yn4uAhU)
When a rage for authenticity meets a passionate fakery meets a workingman's attitude, you get this guy. An actor of great dimension — just don't call him that. And he'll probably win some big award for his role in The Fighter, but don't dare tell him that. A funny and sometimes testy encounter with Mr. Bale.
Like many artists, Bale says he also dislikes examining his choices.
BALE: I find that with particular projects, I kinda know in the back of my head why I'm doing it and what I find interesting, but I never wanna bring it to the front and verbalize it. Because the minute I do that, I'm done. I've stuck a fork in that one! I'm bored! So you have to treat yourself like a mushroom to some degree, in order to keep on discovering things.
And he really doesn't like discussing the career arcs of other filmmakers.
BALE: Why are you questioning those things?
ESQUIRE: Just curious.
BALE: Why are you putting all that muddle in your brain that's not needed to be there?
ESQUIRE: I guess you just look at the choices people make and wonder, What's up with that?
BALE: But why are you worrying so much about everybody else? Let's start looking at you for a minute, all right?
A standoff ensues not unlike the scene in Antonioni's The Passenger when Jack Nicholson is interviewing a witch doctor who clearly thinks he's an obnoxious idiot. "Your questions are much more revealing about yourself than my answers will be about me," the witch doctor says, turning the camera around so it's pointing at Nicholson. Major existential moment as Nicholson stares into the abyss between sign and signifier. But we have seen this movie, and it does not turn out well — the spell must be reversed.
BALE: It should just happen. It should just happen. If something's true and sincere, it happens regardless of marketing. The more I talk about it, the more I'm telling people how they should react. And that is an ***hole.
ESQUIRE: Not to argue, but that's not really true.
BALE: Are you calling me a liar? Am I lying?
ESQUIRE: Sometimes the ground needs to be prepared. And you've laid down these onerous rules on me — all I can do is a Q&A.
Actually, these are forbidden words that you are reading right now. Bale is in the habit of requesting that his media interviews be printed in a Q&A format. He also prefers to conduct them at the same five-star luxury hotel in Los Angeles, and makes it known that he dislikes personal questions.
BALE: You don't like that?
ESQUIRE: No! I don't like being told what to do.
BALE: I'll tell you why. Basically, it's somebody who got stuck having to interview me who really wants to be a novelist, so they're writing these novellas and I was like, "It's not true, that didn't happen, they just made all that up! Why don't they just go ahead and be a novelist instead of bothering with interviewing me?"
When a rage for authenticity meets a passionate fakery meets a workingman's attitude, you get this guy. An actor of great dimension — just don't call him that. And he'll probably win some big award for his role in The Fighter, but don't dare tell him that. A funny and sometimes testy encounter with Mr. Bale.
Like many artists, Bale says he also dislikes examining his choices.
BALE: I find that with particular projects, I kinda know in the back of my head why I'm doing it and what I find interesting, but I never wanna bring it to the front and verbalize it. Because the minute I do that, I'm done. I've stuck a fork in that one! I'm bored! So you have to treat yourself like a mushroom to some degree, in order to keep on discovering things.
And he really doesn't like discussing the career arcs of other filmmakers.
BALE: Why are you questioning those things?
ESQUIRE: Just curious.
BALE: Why are you putting all that muddle in your brain that's not needed to be there?
ESQUIRE: I guess you just look at the choices people make and wonder, What's up with that?
BALE: But why are you worrying so much about everybody else? Let's start looking at you for a minute, all right?
A standoff ensues not unlike the scene in Antonioni's The Passenger when Jack Nicholson is interviewing a witch doctor who clearly thinks he's an obnoxious idiot. "Your questions are much more revealing about yourself than my answers will be about me," the witch doctor says, turning the camera around so it's pointing at Nicholson. Major existential moment as Nicholson stares into the abyss between sign and signifier. But we have seen this movie, and it does not turn out well — the spell must be reversed.
BALE: It should just happen. It should just happen. If something's true and sincere, it happens regardless of marketing. The more I talk about it, the more I'm telling people how they should react. And that is an ***hole.
ESQUIRE: Not to argue, but that's not really true.
BALE: Are you calling me a liar? Am I lying?
ESQUIRE: Sometimes the ground needs to be prepared. And you've laid down these onerous rules on me — all I can do is a Q&A.
Actually, these are forbidden words that you are reading right now. Bale is in the habit of requesting that his media interviews be printed in a Q&A format. He also prefers to conduct them at the same five-star luxury hotel in Los Angeles, and makes it known that he dislikes personal questions.
BALE: You don't like that?
ESQUIRE: No! I don't like being told what to do.
BALE: I'll tell you why. Basically, it's somebody who got stuck having to interview me who really wants to be a novelist, so they're writing these novellas and I was like, "It's not true, that didn't happen, they just made all that up! Why don't they just go ahead and be a novelist instead of bothering with interviewing me?"