također. ne sjećam se kada sam tako nestrpljivo očekivao neki film...eventualno grindhouse i LOTRcvd-klon wrote:Genijalan "kolaž"... Jedini film koji baš očekujem ove godine...
The Dark Knight
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http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=21825I can think of quite a few descriptions for THE DARK KNIGHT. But truthfully, it is very difficult to describe how the film went above and beyond my expectations
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Christian Bale Interview, The Dark Knight
Christian Bale is a terrific actor and we really appreciated his time. Dressed in a dark shirt and slacks and sporting a buzz cut for “Terminator Salvation” which he’s currently filming, here’s what he had to tell us about “The Dark Knight”:
MoviesOnline: What is it about you and these franchises?
CHRISTIAN BALE: That was actually something which I questioned greatly, I would say, “Do I want to do that again?” But what I saw with Terminator was what I saw with Batman Begins. Now whilst Batman Begins was clearly an origins story, and we were in many ways ignoring any of the other movies that had come before, which won’t be the case with the Terminator – we are staying true to the mythology, certainly to one and two more so than three, but it’s the opportunity and the chance to reinvent and revitalize that. And there’s no point in making it otherwise. So that is my aim, and that’s why I finally decided, because I took a long time to consider and why I finally decided yes, I wanted to try this, because that’s a responsibility that we have as filmmakers and that’s what I’m aiming to achieve.
MoviesOnline: With Dark Knight you obviously decided that it needed to go in a very different direction than Batman Begins before you agreed to be a part of the sequel.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, absolutely. I met with Chris. I had read Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. I had read various other graphic novels. For the first time I’d seen something interesting in Batman which I’d never seen before that was more the tone of how I wished to portray him. I expressed that to Chris. He told me how he wanted to make the movie. It seemed very compatible and so he decided, yes, he would cast me for it. To me, actually, I feel like we’ve kind of gone back to its roots. When I’ve spoken with friends of Bob Kane, relatives, they’ve said, “No, he meant this to be a very dark character.” He always viewed what Adam West did so well, but he was spoofing Batman, he wasn’t really playing Batman then.
MoviesOnline: Some of that original source material would show Batman and the Joker as being almost equally psychotic.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Right.
MoviesOnline: But in The Dark Knight you’ve kind of taken some of that psychosis out of it and made it about order and chaos, was that on purpose?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, see, I think though that Batman is having to maintain this discipline and a sense of order because he does have such a temptation for chaos, and for disruption and for violence, because he has this great shadow side born of the pain of the death of his parents, born for a need for revenge. His creation of Batman has never been healthy for his own personal life, you know. He has a great capability for violence and he’s given himself this one rule of he will not kill precisely because he can see how very easily he could cross that line. But, because of his inherited altruism and philanthropy from his parents, he does not wish to cross that line, but he’s always in conflict with himself about it, and the Joker is the person who has managed to have him questioning his own ethics, more so than anybody up until now, and tempting him to break his own rule because he knows if he can break his own rule, he can possibly prevent the deaths of many other people, and the question of, well, is it in that case selfish to hold on to his principles, should he break his own principles for that, and there are some wonderful ethical questions that come up in The Dark Knight.
MoviesOnline: What were the dimensions in this Batman that attracted you back?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, I knew that Chris had proven his ideas in Batman Begins, so I feel as though he was given more freedom to make exactly the movie that he wished to make for The Dark Knight. He can correct me on that if I'm wrong but that was my feeling. I know that with Chris, this is our third time we've worked together, that he's not going to bother making another movie if he doesn't feel like he can improve upon the first one. I went to his house, I sat and read the script and felt like he had really nailed just kind of exploding all of the clichés of genre movies. This was no longer an action movie. This was no longer a superhero movie. This was a movie that can stand shoulder to shoulder with any genre of movie. Of course, we have the resources and the ability to have the spectacle of the stunts and the explosions and all the excitement of that, but not have the compromise of great storytelling. These special effects and explosions, they don't mean crap if they're not in the context of a really great, substantial drama.
MoviesOnline: What was the challenge of playing more suited scenes and not showing your face?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I think that there's an opportunity with the body language to show everything there. He's not a guy who feels the suit to be constricting. Wearing the mask and putting on the suit gives him absolute freedom. He feels most free within that because he's free to anonymously let his anger out and his violence out and become that person who he has to hide from the rest of society most of the time. I think that's something that's interesting. He does it in a more extreme fashion probably than most of us do but I think everybody has a shadow side to them. We all understand the rules of engagement for civilized society but we're all tempted to break them all the time and we all are intrigued when we see people happily breaking those rules. With Batman, it's often a very fine line with him crossing the line, going too far.
MoviesOnline: Do you have a solution for the moral dilemma of dealing with crime and corruption?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, it's the circumstances. As we see in The Dark Knight, if there's the possibility of having the system work and of having somebody like Harvey Dent be an elected official who can actually solve the problems that Batman's trying to do himself, then obviously Batman is obsolete at that point. So he believes in the system. It's just that the system in Gotham is broken.
MoviesOnline: Do you live in the system?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, look, everyone would want to live in a system that works but when it doesn't, I think everyone would like to think that they were able to effect some kind of a change themselves, and answer problems for themselves instead of being completely useless. Whether that's the correct thing to do in the long term or not, I'm not sure. But certainly when it comes to protecting things that you love, then it's black and white. You don't really care too much about the long term consequences. You're gonna do what is right for the people around you in that instant which is of course always the conflict between what is right for the individual and is that right for society in general. It's what's so great about being human. We're not ants. We do have individual streaks and we will do what is right for ourselves and not just tow the line.
MoviesOnline: You said your father is your hero. How so?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I was just never somebody who really gravitated towards needing a hero. I don't know why, I just never was -- certainly not any kind of comic book style or anything or in any other fashion. I had many people who I found intriguing and interesting but my father was just always somebody who was very, very engaging and a real character. So the first time I ever considered that question was being asked it in an interview and I just sat back and thought, well, who have I looked up to most consistently throughout my life? Well, that's my father. Of course.
MoviesOnline: Can you talk about working with Heath Ledger, both the actor and the man? He really turns in a performance that's for the ages.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely.
MoviesOnline: How did that affect you?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, look, first of all it's wonderful that people are recognizing that. I love the fact that, regardless of whether it ever comes to fruition or not, Chris has created in this movie even the possibility that people are talking about accolades for an actor in a superhero action genre movie. Usually that is never even considered, so kudos to Chris for doing that and to Heath for coming forward with that devastating performance. He has raised the bar, completely, with it. He was absolutely committed. I enjoyed working with him immensely. Clearly it is tragic that we are talking about this as his last complete performance. I would love it if he were to be walking in the room right now -- he would be talking, he's great company. I looked forward to working with him many times in the future. I looked forward to being his friend for many years to come. But this movie can be a celebration of his talent, and thank you for saying that because he truly deserves that. He was a fierce talent and I was very fortunate to get to witness that talent and work with it and know the man during his lifetime.
MoviesOnline: You have a very violent, unpleasant scene with Heath. What surprised you about working with him and how tough was it to do that particular scene?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Are you talking about the interrogation sequence? That was our very first scene together, and it was a great way to start because also we were afforded the luxury for some part of that scene for being completely alone inside of that room with the cameras outside, with just mirrors surrounding us so that the two of us [were] able to be eyeballing each other and then any way we looked we would just see reflections of two freaks sitting at the table together. I was able to see for the first time how Heath was playing the Joker, and the complete commitment he had to it, and really enjoyed seeing that. Of course, what the scene reveals is that this is not going to be Batman’s ordinary foe who he is able to intimidate with violence, because the more he beats the Joker, the bigger the smile on the Joker’s face becomes, so he realizes he’s just satisfying the Joker with this violence. And in seeing Heath’s commitment, Heath, man, he received some heavy bangs and bruises from that scene and he loved every second of it. He just adored it. He was egging me on for more. The walls were buckling in from doing that scene. He had total commitment to it, he created this really iconic villain, portrayed the Joker in a way that he’s never been portrayed before, far creepier, far more anarchic than anything we’ve seen, you know, Clockwork Orange-style Joker, and it was a great scene to kick off with, literally.
MoviesOnline: Does working with someone like that help push your game in a way?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, because I really enjoy that. What we do for a living is completely ridiculous, we call ourselves grown men who are still pretending to be other people for a living. And the more ridiculous I view what I do, the more I love it, you know, and the more I appreciate that I’m able to do this as a living, and the more seriously I take it. It sound paradoxical, but I think that the more serious and the more dramatic any role gets in any genre, the more ridiculous you’ve made it. But I take it incredibly seriously and I recognize that in Heath as well, and so me sitting opposite [him], seeing him, I was getting real pleasure from seeing the satisfaction he was getting from it, because I recognized it was same satisfaction that I get from acting as well, and absolutely when you have anybody as good as him, we’ve got a damn good cast straight throughout this movie, it becomes that much easier to create great scenes.
MoviesOnline: What sort of place does Chris Nolan create for an actor working for him?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, I mean, we’ve worked together now three times and so we – well, I can speak for myself, I clearly have a great trust in his abilities and that he is going to be making a very smart and engaging movie. It never stops me from questioning him, because everybody should have people questioning them around. Nobody benefits from having yes-men around the place, but I’ve yet to come up with a question that he hasn’t considered before I’ve asked it. And I hope that he would be able to feel the same with me. He does know that I’m the kind of actor that can arrive, and without him having to tell me anything, I will have my own opinion about how a scene should be shot and I will present it to him. And then the collaboration begins of him telling me, “What the hell was that? What are you doing? You’re missing the point?” Or, “Bang on, that was it. We got it, and we’re moving on.” So I hope that he has the same trust in me that I do in him.
MoviesOnline: Do you think you’ll do a third one?
CHRISTIAN BALE: You’ve got to ask Chris that, you know. Look, I see that in finishing the movie I want to know what happens, what is going to happen. It is completely in the hands of Chris, of whether he desires to do that or not. Are you meeting with him? I will bet a lot of money that he didn’t give you any indication about whether that is going to happen or not. But it’s completely his decision. I think that there’s a great challenge to it for two reasons, one is that there have been a number of sequels that have surpassed the first movie. You look at Godfather 2, Empire Strikes Back, in my personal opinion at least it surpassed the first. There’s not been many times where the third in a trilogy has managed to be the best, and I see that as a good enough reason to want to tackle it. There’s also another challenge which is Heath has done such a superb job with this, how do you create a superior villain to that?
MoviesOnline: The Joker storyline is unresolved, there’s no finality to that character. Was there an interest in bringing him back for a third one, and what do you do?
CHRISTIAN BALE: More questions for Chris.
MoviesOnline: Do you personally like the ambiguities that were left with in this film?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I always do, I always like to have to think as I’m leaving the theatre. I do love any movie that leaves me questioning what has happened, what is going to happen. Chris and Jonah Nolan are wonderful at giving audiences new information on a second viewing, putting little secrets in there that you will only recognize once you’ve seen the movie the first time, and I love that kind of nuance.
MoviesOnline: Would it require Chris’ involvement for you to come back?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I can’t imagine doing this without Chris. I don’t even want to consider that, because he’s created this, this is his. No matter how much there are great performances, and no matter how much there’s a great cast, everything, everything comes down to the director. He cast those people; he’s responsible for picking the right people for the right parts. He’s responsible for the whole damn thing. If the movie works, it’s all due to Chris. If the movie fails it’s all due to Chris. The director should take the credit and all the blame whether a movie works or not. Absolutely, he should, because he is the one that’s making all the decisions. I’m just providing the piece of the puzzle, but he’s picked me to provide that piece of the puzzle, so if I’m not doing it well, okay, I’m to blame for not bringing that up, but he’s to blame for casting me in the first place.
MoviesOnline: With 80 years of Batman interpretations - -
CHRISTIAN BALE: Not quite, 1939.
MoviesOnline: How do you find any wiggle room within that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, what do we have to look at? Adam West, hey, listen, he did it brilliantly. It was a spoof. It's a spoof of what I believe Bob Kane's original intention was. Then we have the other movies which were in between but still very, very theatrical. These were, with all due respect to them, and Tim Burton is a wonderful filmmaker, but ultimately these were men walking around dressed up like a bat. These were not people who became a different creature when they donned that [suit] and I'd never seen that done before. I was misunderstood a number of times after Batman Begins when I'd mentioned about the possibility of making an R-rated Batman. A number of people came to me and said, "Well, you wanna put sex scenes into Batman?" I said, "No, no, no, that's not at all what I was talking about." What I was meaning is if you look at the more recent graphic novels, there is such a darkness to it and such an internal human conflict and such questioning of the shadow side and the good motivation and good versus evil and the violence and his capability and propensity for violence, that it could very easily become an R-rated movie. I feel like the reinvention here. I'm not sure what anyone would do in the future with Batman movies, but they'll work it out. But this version has certainly never been seen before, not in a movie.
MoviesOnline: Do you still see other sides to the character left that you want to play?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I do definitely. Again, that's Chris Nolan's decision. I finished this movie and I want to see what is going to happen next. He is the ultimate hero and he deserves all the credit and he's getting absolutely none whatsoever. But hey, that's Chris Nolan's decision.
MoviesOnline: Does it hurt your throat to do the Batman voice?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Not anymore. On the first one, it took me a while to really get accustomed to it but it's like riding a bike. For the second one, I could just switch on and off any time.
MoviesOnline: How did you like the new suit, the new cowl?
CHRISTIAN BALE: So much better in every way. For me, just personally, so much more comfortable, it didn’t give me a migraine every time I put it on. I could act the anger instead of genuinely feeling the anger like in the first one. I could breathe much better and it was so much easier for the fighting sequences.
MoviesOnline: The Keysi fight coordinators worked you hard for 2-3 hours.
CHRISTIAN BALE: That doesn't sound like working very hard.
MoviesOnline: I’m referring to the workouts and martial arts.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Oh, right.
MoviesOnline: Are you ever tempted to take a breather?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely. Maybe there's a temptation to find a role where preparation involves drinking a lot of wine and eating a lot of pasta and just putting on a lot of weight or something, and taking it easy. I think I put my body through enough transformation in the past few years that at my age now, getting to mid-30s, I'm starting to think, "Yeah, I might start to have consequences if I keep doing this to myself too much." I'm starting not to quite feel as invulnerable as I always have. But I enjoy the notion of strenuous work. I like it. I like to know I really worked at something. I don't like particularly taking it easy. The thing that I dislike most about filmmaking is waiting, waiting around. You're standing around doing nothing. That's what I dislike.
MoviesOnline: Was that you standing on the ledge at the Sears Tower?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, I wasn’t going to let anybody else do that.
MoviesOnline: What is the thrill? Is it just that the suit puts you there and you love that, or is it a frightening thing? Why did you want to do that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, I don’t have a fear of heights, but how often am I going to get a chance to stand on the ledge of the Sears Tower, at a 110 stories down as Batman? It’s unlikely that’s going to happen again.
MoviesOnline: You were attached to something?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, exactly, that’s why I said I don’t exactly consider it a stunt, it was an experience. There was no way they were going to let their leading man plummet 110 stories down to the streets of Chicago. I had a cable, I would have fallen a short way, surprised some office worker down below, and then be pulled up.
MoviesOnline: Did you shoot an action scene in Hong Kong or just the questioning?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We did the scene with Morgan Freeman but I also went up, is it the IFC tower? So I did the highest tower in Chicago, then we went and did the highest tower in Hong Kong and stood there. That was all for real. I was dab handed by the time I got to Hong Kong. I was just strolling around. Yes, we did do those scenes, a few scenes there.
MoviesOnline: Did you have time to explore Hong Kong and did you like it?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We had time to get lost but I tend to find, myself and my wife, we go get lost in cities and I think that's the best way to discover them. It's a very interesting city. There are so many different layers to that city. I wasn't there for that long but yeah. It wasn't what I'd expected.
MoviesOnline: Did you try some Chinese food in Hong Kong?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely I did, yeah. But I had done that back in 1987 in Shanghai and discovered at the age of 13 that the Chinese food in China is very different from the Chinese food in London, you know, as I was trying to attack a full headed fish with a chopstick.
MoviesOnline: Are there any fun mishaps or bloopers for the DVD?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I don't think it's an appropriate movie for that. I'm not sure if there will be and I think that kind of thing is really appropriate for comedies and stuff but I'm actually the anti-extra-information-on-DVDs. Look, it's just become normal and I'm seen as being a real old fashioned kind of grump when I express my attitudes towards it, but I think that movies, like magic, should maintain a mystery. I think that if you want to find out how things are done, I think you should really have to work at that and to search it out. I don't like the way things are offered up so easily with all the EPKs and the behind the scenes footage and how things were shot. I don't like that kind of stuff.
MoviesOnline: How you talked to Chris about The Prisoner, because you’d be incredible for that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, we have spoken about it.
MoviesOnline: Are you going to be at Comic-Con in San Diego later this month?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I’m not going to be in the country.
Q; Are you doing publicity abroad? Is that why you’re not going to be here?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, we’re going for The Dark Knight.
MoviesOnline: What about Killing Pablo? And have you finished Public Enemies?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We haven't filmed Killing Pablo, but Public Enemies, yes I've finished.
MoviesOnline: So what do you find interesting about law enforcers?
CHRISTIAN BALE: It's not particularly a law enforcer against criminals. It's first of all just a great story and then with the character of Melvin Purvis in Public Enemies, he was a fascinating character. You could make a couple of movies just about his life. It's working with Michael Mann who is one of the most thorough and wonderful researchers and just has such nuance and I think is just such a fine filmmaker. So it's that. It's that more than an attraction to law enforcement.
MoviesOnline: You’re filming Terminator Salvation right now, aren’t you?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, that’s in country.
MoviesOnline: What attracted you to another big franchise like Terminator?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, initially actually that was not an attraction. I felt that I wasn't sure where it could go to. I went back, I reviewed, before I gave an answer, I went back and reviewed the other movies. I felt like okay, unlike Batman Begins, this would be something where we would be respecting the previous mythology. Certainly of one and two, not so much number three, but certainly you would be recognizing that mythology, unlike Batman Begins where we were saying that this is the beginning right here. But what I view in it and what has ultimately made me make the choice to make it is that I see the same potential for reinvention and for breathing new life into the mythology. That's what I view our responsibility as filmmakers to be. It's pointless if we don't succeed in doing that.
MoviesOnline: How’s the filming going?
CHRISTIAN BALE: It’s going well, it’s going well. It’s a tall order, it really is, and I recognize that and we have a lot of work to do. I’ve just begun on it, because I only just finished working on Public Enemies a couple of weeks back. They're a number of weeks in. I'm just a week and a half in.
MoviesOnline: Is the buzz cut for Terminator?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah.
MoviesOnline: What about the beard? Is that also for Terminator, or are you just too lazy to shave?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, it’s kind of a notion of – it’s just Terminator, and he shaves everything once a week.
“The Dark Knight” opens in theaters on July 18th.
Christian Bale is a terrific actor and we really appreciated his time. Dressed in a dark shirt and slacks and sporting a buzz cut for “Terminator Salvation” which he’s currently filming, here’s what he had to tell us about “The Dark Knight”:
MoviesOnline: What is it about you and these franchises?
CHRISTIAN BALE: That was actually something which I questioned greatly, I would say, “Do I want to do that again?” But what I saw with Terminator was what I saw with Batman Begins. Now whilst Batman Begins was clearly an origins story, and we were in many ways ignoring any of the other movies that had come before, which won’t be the case with the Terminator – we are staying true to the mythology, certainly to one and two more so than three, but it’s the opportunity and the chance to reinvent and revitalize that. And there’s no point in making it otherwise. So that is my aim, and that’s why I finally decided, because I took a long time to consider and why I finally decided yes, I wanted to try this, because that’s a responsibility that we have as filmmakers and that’s what I’m aiming to achieve.
MoviesOnline: With Dark Knight you obviously decided that it needed to go in a very different direction than Batman Begins before you agreed to be a part of the sequel.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, absolutely. I met with Chris. I had read Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. I had read various other graphic novels. For the first time I’d seen something interesting in Batman which I’d never seen before that was more the tone of how I wished to portray him. I expressed that to Chris. He told me how he wanted to make the movie. It seemed very compatible and so he decided, yes, he would cast me for it. To me, actually, I feel like we’ve kind of gone back to its roots. When I’ve spoken with friends of Bob Kane, relatives, they’ve said, “No, he meant this to be a very dark character.” He always viewed what Adam West did so well, but he was spoofing Batman, he wasn’t really playing Batman then.
MoviesOnline: Some of that original source material would show Batman and the Joker as being almost equally psychotic.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Right.
MoviesOnline: But in The Dark Knight you’ve kind of taken some of that psychosis out of it and made it about order and chaos, was that on purpose?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, see, I think though that Batman is having to maintain this discipline and a sense of order because he does have such a temptation for chaos, and for disruption and for violence, because he has this great shadow side born of the pain of the death of his parents, born for a need for revenge. His creation of Batman has never been healthy for his own personal life, you know. He has a great capability for violence and he’s given himself this one rule of he will not kill precisely because he can see how very easily he could cross that line. But, because of his inherited altruism and philanthropy from his parents, he does not wish to cross that line, but he’s always in conflict with himself about it, and the Joker is the person who has managed to have him questioning his own ethics, more so than anybody up until now, and tempting him to break his own rule because he knows if he can break his own rule, he can possibly prevent the deaths of many other people, and the question of, well, is it in that case selfish to hold on to his principles, should he break his own principles for that, and there are some wonderful ethical questions that come up in The Dark Knight.
MoviesOnline: What were the dimensions in this Batman that attracted you back?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, I knew that Chris had proven his ideas in Batman Begins, so I feel as though he was given more freedom to make exactly the movie that he wished to make for The Dark Knight. He can correct me on that if I'm wrong but that was my feeling. I know that with Chris, this is our third time we've worked together, that he's not going to bother making another movie if he doesn't feel like he can improve upon the first one. I went to his house, I sat and read the script and felt like he had really nailed just kind of exploding all of the clichés of genre movies. This was no longer an action movie. This was no longer a superhero movie. This was a movie that can stand shoulder to shoulder with any genre of movie. Of course, we have the resources and the ability to have the spectacle of the stunts and the explosions and all the excitement of that, but not have the compromise of great storytelling. These special effects and explosions, they don't mean crap if they're not in the context of a really great, substantial drama.
MoviesOnline: What was the challenge of playing more suited scenes and not showing your face?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I think that there's an opportunity with the body language to show everything there. He's not a guy who feels the suit to be constricting. Wearing the mask and putting on the suit gives him absolute freedom. He feels most free within that because he's free to anonymously let his anger out and his violence out and become that person who he has to hide from the rest of society most of the time. I think that's something that's interesting. He does it in a more extreme fashion probably than most of us do but I think everybody has a shadow side to them. We all understand the rules of engagement for civilized society but we're all tempted to break them all the time and we all are intrigued when we see people happily breaking those rules. With Batman, it's often a very fine line with him crossing the line, going too far.
MoviesOnline: Do you have a solution for the moral dilemma of dealing with crime and corruption?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, it's the circumstances. As we see in The Dark Knight, if there's the possibility of having the system work and of having somebody like Harvey Dent be an elected official who can actually solve the problems that Batman's trying to do himself, then obviously Batman is obsolete at that point. So he believes in the system. It's just that the system in Gotham is broken.
MoviesOnline: Do you live in the system?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, look, everyone would want to live in a system that works but when it doesn't, I think everyone would like to think that they were able to effect some kind of a change themselves, and answer problems for themselves instead of being completely useless. Whether that's the correct thing to do in the long term or not, I'm not sure. But certainly when it comes to protecting things that you love, then it's black and white. You don't really care too much about the long term consequences. You're gonna do what is right for the people around you in that instant which is of course always the conflict between what is right for the individual and is that right for society in general. It's what's so great about being human. We're not ants. We do have individual streaks and we will do what is right for ourselves and not just tow the line.
MoviesOnline: You said your father is your hero. How so?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I was just never somebody who really gravitated towards needing a hero. I don't know why, I just never was -- certainly not any kind of comic book style or anything or in any other fashion. I had many people who I found intriguing and interesting but my father was just always somebody who was very, very engaging and a real character. So the first time I ever considered that question was being asked it in an interview and I just sat back and thought, well, who have I looked up to most consistently throughout my life? Well, that's my father. Of course.
MoviesOnline: Can you talk about working with Heath Ledger, both the actor and the man? He really turns in a performance that's for the ages.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely.
MoviesOnline: How did that affect you?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, look, first of all it's wonderful that people are recognizing that. I love the fact that, regardless of whether it ever comes to fruition or not, Chris has created in this movie even the possibility that people are talking about accolades for an actor in a superhero action genre movie. Usually that is never even considered, so kudos to Chris for doing that and to Heath for coming forward with that devastating performance. He has raised the bar, completely, with it. He was absolutely committed. I enjoyed working with him immensely. Clearly it is tragic that we are talking about this as his last complete performance. I would love it if he were to be walking in the room right now -- he would be talking, he's great company. I looked forward to working with him many times in the future. I looked forward to being his friend for many years to come. But this movie can be a celebration of his talent, and thank you for saying that because he truly deserves that. He was a fierce talent and I was very fortunate to get to witness that talent and work with it and know the man during his lifetime.
MoviesOnline: You have a very violent, unpleasant scene with Heath. What surprised you about working with him and how tough was it to do that particular scene?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Are you talking about the interrogation sequence? That was our very first scene together, and it was a great way to start because also we were afforded the luxury for some part of that scene for being completely alone inside of that room with the cameras outside, with just mirrors surrounding us so that the two of us [were] able to be eyeballing each other and then any way we looked we would just see reflections of two freaks sitting at the table together. I was able to see for the first time how Heath was playing the Joker, and the complete commitment he had to it, and really enjoyed seeing that. Of course, what the scene reveals is that this is not going to be Batman’s ordinary foe who he is able to intimidate with violence, because the more he beats the Joker, the bigger the smile on the Joker’s face becomes, so he realizes he’s just satisfying the Joker with this violence. And in seeing Heath’s commitment, Heath, man, he received some heavy bangs and bruises from that scene and he loved every second of it. He just adored it. He was egging me on for more. The walls were buckling in from doing that scene. He had total commitment to it, he created this really iconic villain, portrayed the Joker in a way that he’s never been portrayed before, far creepier, far more anarchic than anything we’ve seen, you know, Clockwork Orange-style Joker, and it was a great scene to kick off with, literally.
MoviesOnline: Does working with someone like that help push your game in a way?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, because I really enjoy that. What we do for a living is completely ridiculous, we call ourselves grown men who are still pretending to be other people for a living. And the more ridiculous I view what I do, the more I love it, you know, and the more I appreciate that I’m able to do this as a living, and the more seriously I take it. It sound paradoxical, but I think that the more serious and the more dramatic any role gets in any genre, the more ridiculous you’ve made it. But I take it incredibly seriously and I recognize that in Heath as well, and so me sitting opposite [him], seeing him, I was getting real pleasure from seeing the satisfaction he was getting from it, because I recognized it was same satisfaction that I get from acting as well, and absolutely when you have anybody as good as him, we’ve got a damn good cast straight throughout this movie, it becomes that much easier to create great scenes.
MoviesOnline: What sort of place does Chris Nolan create for an actor working for him?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, I mean, we’ve worked together now three times and so we – well, I can speak for myself, I clearly have a great trust in his abilities and that he is going to be making a very smart and engaging movie. It never stops me from questioning him, because everybody should have people questioning them around. Nobody benefits from having yes-men around the place, but I’ve yet to come up with a question that he hasn’t considered before I’ve asked it. And I hope that he would be able to feel the same with me. He does know that I’m the kind of actor that can arrive, and without him having to tell me anything, I will have my own opinion about how a scene should be shot and I will present it to him. And then the collaboration begins of him telling me, “What the hell was that? What are you doing? You’re missing the point?” Or, “Bang on, that was it. We got it, and we’re moving on.” So I hope that he has the same trust in me that I do in him.
MoviesOnline: Do you think you’ll do a third one?
CHRISTIAN BALE: You’ve got to ask Chris that, you know. Look, I see that in finishing the movie I want to know what happens, what is going to happen. It is completely in the hands of Chris, of whether he desires to do that or not. Are you meeting with him? I will bet a lot of money that he didn’t give you any indication about whether that is going to happen or not. But it’s completely his decision. I think that there’s a great challenge to it for two reasons, one is that there have been a number of sequels that have surpassed the first movie. You look at Godfather 2, Empire Strikes Back, in my personal opinion at least it surpassed the first. There’s not been many times where the third in a trilogy has managed to be the best, and I see that as a good enough reason to want to tackle it. There’s also another challenge which is Heath has done such a superb job with this, how do you create a superior villain to that?
MoviesOnline: The Joker storyline is unresolved, there’s no finality to that character. Was there an interest in bringing him back for a third one, and what do you do?
CHRISTIAN BALE: More questions for Chris.
MoviesOnline: Do you personally like the ambiguities that were left with in this film?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I always do, I always like to have to think as I’m leaving the theatre. I do love any movie that leaves me questioning what has happened, what is going to happen. Chris and Jonah Nolan are wonderful at giving audiences new information on a second viewing, putting little secrets in there that you will only recognize once you’ve seen the movie the first time, and I love that kind of nuance.
MoviesOnline: Would it require Chris’ involvement for you to come back?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I can’t imagine doing this without Chris. I don’t even want to consider that, because he’s created this, this is his. No matter how much there are great performances, and no matter how much there’s a great cast, everything, everything comes down to the director. He cast those people; he’s responsible for picking the right people for the right parts. He’s responsible for the whole damn thing. If the movie works, it’s all due to Chris. If the movie fails it’s all due to Chris. The director should take the credit and all the blame whether a movie works or not. Absolutely, he should, because he is the one that’s making all the decisions. I’m just providing the piece of the puzzle, but he’s picked me to provide that piece of the puzzle, so if I’m not doing it well, okay, I’m to blame for not bringing that up, but he’s to blame for casting me in the first place.
MoviesOnline: With 80 years of Batman interpretations - -
CHRISTIAN BALE: Not quite, 1939.
MoviesOnline: How do you find any wiggle room within that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, what do we have to look at? Adam West, hey, listen, he did it brilliantly. It was a spoof. It's a spoof of what I believe Bob Kane's original intention was. Then we have the other movies which were in between but still very, very theatrical. These were, with all due respect to them, and Tim Burton is a wonderful filmmaker, but ultimately these were men walking around dressed up like a bat. These were not people who became a different creature when they donned that [suit] and I'd never seen that done before. I was misunderstood a number of times after Batman Begins when I'd mentioned about the possibility of making an R-rated Batman. A number of people came to me and said, "Well, you wanna put sex scenes into Batman?" I said, "No, no, no, that's not at all what I was talking about." What I was meaning is if you look at the more recent graphic novels, there is such a darkness to it and such an internal human conflict and such questioning of the shadow side and the good motivation and good versus evil and the violence and his capability and propensity for violence, that it could very easily become an R-rated movie. I feel like the reinvention here. I'm not sure what anyone would do in the future with Batman movies, but they'll work it out. But this version has certainly never been seen before, not in a movie.
MoviesOnline: Do you still see other sides to the character left that you want to play?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I do definitely. Again, that's Chris Nolan's decision. I finished this movie and I want to see what is going to happen next. He is the ultimate hero and he deserves all the credit and he's getting absolutely none whatsoever. But hey, that's Chris Nolan's decision.
MoviesOnline: Does it hurt your throat to do the Batman voice?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Not anymore. On the first one, it took me a while to really get accustomed to it but it's like riding a bike. For the second one, I could just switch on and off any time.
MoviesOnline: How did you like the new suit, the new cowl?
CHRISTIAN BALE: So much better in every way. For me, just personally, so much more comfortable, it didn’t give me a migraine every time I put it on. I could act the anger instead of genuinely feeling the anger like in the first one. I could breathe much better and it was so much easier for the fighting sequences.
MoviesOnline: The Keysi fight coordinators worked you hard for 2-3 hours.
CHRISTIAN BALE: That doesn't sound like working very hard.
MoviesOnline: I’m referring to the workouts and martial arts.
CHRISTIAN BALE: Oh, right.
MoviesOnline: Are you ever tempted to take a breather?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely. Maybe there's a temptation to find a role where preparation involves drinking a lot of wine and eating a lot of pasta and just putting on a lot of weight or something, and taking it easy. I think I put my body through enough transformation in the past few years that at my age now, getting to mid-30s, I'm starting to think, "Yeah, I might start to have consequences if I keep doing this to myself too much." I'm starting not to quite feel as invulnerable as I always have. But I enjoy the notion of strenuous work. I like it. I like to know I really worked at something. I don't like particularly taking it easy. The thing that I dislike most about filmmaking is waiting, waiting around. You're standing around doing nothing. That's what I dislike.
MoviesOnline: Was that you standing on the ledge at the Sears Tower?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, I wasn’t going to let anybody else do that.
MoviesOnline: What is the thrill? Is it just that the suit puts you there and you love that, or is it a frightening thing? Why did you want to do that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, I don’t have a fear of heights, but how often am I going to get a chance to stand on the ledge of the Sears Tower, at a 110 stories down as Batman? It’s unlikely that’s going to happen again.
MoviesOnline: You were attached to something?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, exactly, that’s why I said I don’t exactly consider it a stunt, it was an experience. There was no way they were going to let their leading man plummet 110 stories down to the streets of Chicago. I had a cable, I would have fallen a short way, surprised some office worker down below, and then be pulled up.
MoviesOnline: Did you shoot an action scene in Hong Kong or just the questioning?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We did the scene with Morgan Freeman but I also went up, is it the IFC tower? So I did the highest tower in Chicago, then we went and did the highest tower in Hong Kong and stood there. That was all for real. I was dab handed by the time I got to Hong Kong. I was just strolling around. Yes, we did do those scenes, a few scenes there.
MoviesOnline: Did you have time to explore Hong Kong and did you like it?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We had time to get lost but I tend to find, myself and my wife, we go get lost in cities and I think that's the best way to discover them. It's a very interesting city. There are so many different layers to that city. I wasn't there for that long but yeah. It wasn't what I'd expected.
MoviesOnline: Did you try some Chinese food in Hong Kong?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Absolutely I did, yeah. But I had done that back in 1987 in Shanghai and discovered at the age of 13 that the Chinese food in China is very different from the Chinese food in London, you know, as I was trying to attack a full headed fish with a chopstick.
MoviesOnline: Are there any fun mishaps or bloopers for the DVD?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I don't think it's an appropriate movie for that. I'm not sure if there will be and I think that kind of thing is really appropriate for comedies and stuff but I'm actually the anti-extra-information-on-DVDs. Look, it's just become normal and I'm seen as being a real old fashioned kind of grump when I express my attitudes towards it, but I think that movies, like magic, should maintain a mystery. I think that if you want to find out how things are done, I think you should really have to work at that and to search it out. I don't like the way things are offered up so easily with all the EPKs and the behind the scenes footage and how things were shot. I don't like that kind of stuff.
MoviesOnline: How you talked to Chris about The Prisoner, because you’d be incredible for that?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, we have spoken about it.
MoviesOnline: Are you going to be at Comic-Con in San Diego later this month?
CHRISTIAN BALE: I’m not going to be in the country.
Q; Are you doing publicity abroad? Is that why you’re not going to be here?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, we’re going for The Dark Knight.
MoviesOnline: What about Killing Pablo? And have you finished Public Enemies?
CHRISTIAN BALE: We haven't filmed Killing Pablo, but Public Enemies, yes I've finished.
MoviesOnline: So what do you find interesting about law enforcers?
CHRISTIAN BALE: It's not particularly a law enforcer against criminals. It's first of all just a great story and then with the character of Melvin Purvis in Public Enemies, he was a fascinating character. You could make a couple of movies just about his life. It's working with Michael Mann who is one of the most thorough and wonderful researchers and just has such nuance and I think is just such a fine filmmaker. So it's that. It's that more than an attraction to law enforcement.
MoviesOnline: You’re filming Terminator Salvation right now, aren’t you?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah, that’s in country.
MoviesOnline: What attracted you to another big franchise like Terminator?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Well, initially actually that was not an attraction. I felt that I wasn't sure where it could go to. I went back, I reviewed, before I gave an answer, I went back and reviewed the other movies. I felt like okay, unlike Batman Begins, this would be something where we would be respecting the previous mythology. Certainly of one and two, not so much number three, but certainly you would be recognizing that mythology, unlike Batman Begins where we were saying that this is the beginning right here. But what I view in it and what has ultimately made me make the choice to make it is that I see the same potential for reinvention and for breathing new life into the mythology. That's what I view our responsibility as filmmakers to be. It's pointless if we don't succeed in doing that.
MoviesOnline: How’s the filming going?
CHRISTIAN BALE: It’s going well, it’s going well. It’s a tall order, it really is, and I recognize that and we have a lot of work to do. I’ve just begun on it, because I only just finished working on Public Enemies a couple of weeks back. They're a number of weeks in. I'm just a week and a half in.
MoviesOnline: Is the buzz cut for Terminator?
CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah.
MoviesOnline: What about the beard? Is that also for Terminator, or are you just too lazy to shave?
CHRISTIAN BALE: No, it’s kind of a notion of – it’s just Terminator, and he shaves everything once a week.
“The Dark Knight” opens in theaters on July 18th.
It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's SUPERA$H!!
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A$H
- Posts: 19055
- Joined: 10 Oct 2006, 11:23
- Location: Clubhouse
Totalno se slazem...jebes Robina, nije nimalo potreban u filmovima..stvarno se nadam da ga nece ubacit u treci nastavak
Junak Prestiža i Nestajanja Christian Bale je najavio da ni pod koju cijenu ne bi glumio u novom filmu o Batmanu – u slučaju da scenaristi u film vrate i lik Robina, desne ruke čovjeka šišmiša.
"Ako se Robin pojavi u novom filmu o Batmanu, vezat ću se negdje i odbit ću ići na posao", rekao je Christian.
Bale je 2005. utjelovio superjunaka u filmu Batman: Početak, a ovaj mjesec bi trebao u kina doći novi nastavak priče o čovjeku šišmišu The Dark Knight, ponovno s Christianom u glavnoj ulozi.
It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's SUPERA$H!!
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Dragonrage
- Posts: 8424
- Joined: 06 Oct 2006, 09:44
- Location: Zagreb
- Contact:
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Dragonrage
- Posts: 8424
- Joined: 06 Oct 2006, 09:44
- Location: Zagreb
- Contact:
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Dragonrage
- Posts: 8424
- Joined: 06 Oct 2006, 09:44
- Location: Zagreb
- Contact:
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Boby
- Posts: 3748
- Joined: 31 May 2007, 17:59
- Location: Zagreb
Tko si hoće spojlat jednu minutu filma neka izvoli. Mislim da ne bu požalio, ja nisam. Ledger se čini fenomenalan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgqew6mUtHY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgqew6mUtHY
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john_constantine
- Posts: 27523
- Joined: 06 Oct 2006, 17:25
