"I'm a total mess!" Christian Bale on Amsterdam, American Psycho and singing with Taylor Swift09

Christian, how good are you with compliments? Taking compliments, that is. Oh, let's try it. Okay. I've always wanted to say this, but you are, and this is difficult working for the BBC, so gosh darn expletive deleted good. Oh, thank you, sir. I'll take that very well. That will help me get through the rest of my day. Thank you. Very much appreciated. It's truly firmly meant. Barrington, how are you? Here you go. Dark hazel green. Box of six. Very kind of you. Thank you. I do want to ask you a kind of weird question, though, to begin with, which is based on a YouTube comment beneath the first trailer for Amsterdam. Right. Someone wrote this. If I had a nickel for every time Christian Bale portrayed a guy with a glass eye. Two nickels? I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice. It's not that weird, is it? But I mean, yes, they make a very good point, I suppose. Yes. Michael Burry. I mean, there were very specific identifiers, extremely recognisable. And Bert Berenson. Why would you possibly think that was us? Stop me if I'm wrong, but you trained yourself or made your eye look the other direction to play Michael? You know what? That sounds far more impressive. I might have accidentally done it a few times, you know, sort of as a kid, you tried doing the kind of cross eyes and then can you how much can you move it around and all that? And then maybe occasionally, you know, it happened and we managed to catch it on camera. But there really wasn't much practice involved, sometimes happy accidents. What is the trick, though, to good glass eye acting? Because not only do you have to convey having one, you have to have it punched out on a couple of occasions in this movie. Yeah, numerous occasions, right. We find ourselves in a situation where we're accused of killing someone, which is not true. And sometimes not just punched out, but also just he's an experimental medicine maker who occasionally just pancakes from his own experiments and the eye might come popping out from there. So it happened on numerous occasions. And if I can avoid acting, I do. And so, yeah, we just had a lens in. I really couldn't see anything out of that eye throughout the entire film. And so no acting required. Excellent. And you've got a ton of mannerisms with this character. But of course, do you have any favourites? Because you've talked about being baked into this role. Right. What are the favourite little ingredients? There's a definite bit of Peter Falk. There's a definite there's quite a few bits of my son in their stuff. There's Emmanuel Lubezki, the Chibo. Yeah, the DP. There's all sorts of people in there because it was six years of putting this whole script together with David for me to think about. I've forgotten many of the inspirations. How does putting the back brace on, inhabiting this role, compare maybe in the makeup chair to Gore earlier this year? Oh, so much quicker than Gore. Is that the Necrosword? That's cool. I've only ever read about it in stories. This is going to hurt. But Gore, very comfortable, all tunics and free flowing, you know, clothing and all that. Just you've got to put the fangs in and the acrylic nails. I can't do anything as soon as I put acrylic nails on. I'm absolutely useless. I don't know how people manage it. It's amazing. But my wonderful friend, Chris Gallagher, who put me together for Vice, who put me together as Bert as well and Pale Blue Eye and great company and incredible talent. Can I say also thank you for however it happened, for helping us with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Oh, how did I help you with that? This movie, reminding everybody. Oh, with so many people in it that it's like now it becomes, it's all too easy. This movie has made it too easy. Do you have to make it less degrees? I think it might have to be four now because it's one film. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Annie Teller-Joy, the list goes on and on and on. Rami Malek, Taylor Swift. I've even actually gone to the Six Degrees website. In order to get to Kevin Bacon, Christian Bale, Midsummer Night's Dream, Callista Flockhart, Telling Lies in America, Kevin Bacon. Oh, there you go. How many was that? That was just two. Margot Robbie as well, two, two. You've broken the game. Well done. Sorry, I've ruined it. You do work with an astonishing group of people here. Who was the best at telling anecdotes at the canteen? I had to ask Chris Rock. No, I couldn't ask him to stop because he won't stop, right? Got a dead white man in a box. Not even a casket. Doesn't even have a top on it. Top of old wood. Who do you think is going to get in trouble here? And also he hadn't performed for quite some time. And we have a scene where there's extras and there's a stage. And so he was getting up on the stage and just going, he'd been dying to do this for a couple of years and he was letting it go. And you could see how joyful he's the opposite of me. I'm like, please don't want to get behind the mic. I'm a big fan of Chris's, of his stand up. And first two days chatting away with him, couldn't get enough of talking, realized, oh God, I'm starting to be Christian and not Bert. You know, I'm starting to just be a fan here talking with Chris. So I went to him, I went, dude, I'm going to have to stop talking with you because otherwise Bert's going to disappear very quickly. And so I had to sacrifice that. My grandfather shot a guy in the face and he got shot in the face. Separate occasions, separate occasions, not the same guy. And it all worked out. You've got kids. Were they most excited about you working with Taylor Swift? I actually didn't even tell them until it was a few days afterwards. And I happened to, a Taylor Swift song came on and I went, oh, I was singing with her the other day. And they went, oh, what? I don't know if I can talk about this. I'm not buying that he died of natural causes. I think they were less kind of impressed with me than felt bad for her that she had to sing with me because I sing around the house a lot and it ain't pretty. Wow. OK. Was this singing on and off camera or just, you know, you walk into the canteen, start whistling some tunes? I do sing a lot to myself, but I usually just like a madman just sort of stumbling around. I had to sing on stage. It was, I noticed, abbreviated quite a lot for the film. But then, yes, a scene where J.D. and myself and Taylor did have to sing around, sing very intimately. And it was all sounding all right. But that was because I was singing, so it just sounded all right. And J.D. was singing and we were looking at each other and barely getting the lyrics right and definitely being off pitch. And then David said, hey, how about J.D. and Christian just shut up? And we're like, yeah, good idea. And then Taylor just sang and we all suddenly realised that we'd just been destroying this angelic voice all day long. But really quite something when somebody has that natural gift is quite remarkable. I mean, they're standing here next to you singing like that. Goosebumps. Is somebody watching me? I don't know if I can talk about this. Of all of your movies, what is your favourite fight? Because in this one, you get some pretty quick ones. I got slapped. I got punched. Yeah, I was there for that one. But most recently, I rewatched Ford versus Ferrari. And yeah, I do like that one out on the street. Yeah, that is because it's just so ridiculous. Ken, I'm sorry. Sincerely. The jack in the box punch. Now knock it off, Ken. We got work to do and this car ain't going to build itself. And I've taken on board off of that scene using this. You want me to apologise? No, you're right. It's that one because that's what came to mind immediately. Yes. I just look, I've not got any notes for what Nolan did, but if more of the Batman fights had one of the characters holding some groceries in a bag, it just adds a bit more. Oh, yeah. Next time. Next time. OK. Next time. A weird one going back to keeping your accent, keeping in character with Chris Rock. Are you still ever keeping your character's accent in interviews? No, I'm a total mess. I'm a total mix up. People will go, oh, he's a method. I'm not method. I don't know what kind of actor I am. I did a couple of classes at YWCA off of Tottenham Court Road. That was it, right? I don't know what I do. I just make it up as I go along and I figure it out. What I do know is I'm terrible at just turning accents on like that. But if you actually listen half the time and people do behind the scenes, I'm half English, half the character, because it just takes too much energy to be in character all the time. I don't do that. Yeah. Do you like that bit if I go and say that thing or not? I just kind of keep one foot in both. You accompany. Don't talk like one of them. You're not. When I was doing Batman, I just went, oh, god, no one's going to buy it if I've got an Englishman. But then if you listen to the interviews, I'm doing a really bad American accent throughout most of it. You know, this is a more mature Bruce Wayne. This is a Batman who absolutely is still warring with himself, but it's somebody who has come to have power. I can't help it. There's just my Englishness coming through because I'm not actually playing the character. And I feel like a tit if I'm just completely doing that voice. So I'm actually in my family, I'm like the worst person at accents ever. I have to study and study and study. Hence why I sort of maintain it. But I only say sort of because it's quite embarrassing when I see behind the scenes stuff. I think you do yourself an injustice. Who of all the people you've ever worked with in your career is most likely to make you crack up on set? Because in this movie, you've got Mike Myers. It's all right. Drinks on me. Literally. You've got Chris Rock. So many bloody great actors. Yeah. I mean, Chris was definitely. That's why I did have to say to him, I've got to plug my ears. But there's so many during the scene as well. David, too, makes me crack up all bloody time. It was a very fun and funny set to be on. And I really have to watch for that because perhaps due to me not having any training, once I do start giggling, I can't stop until everyone is just very pissed off with me. What have been the worst giggle fits in your career? Where you've gone, oh, I've lost it. Oh, yeah. No, I've done it multiple times. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I do. When I know it's about to maybe come, I just go walking away. If I imagine myself ever playing, you know, your character in American Psycho, I would have to take so many scenes and just going, I am leaving now. I cannot say this again. Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album. Yes, it's too funny. No, but that was a really interesting film because Mary Harron and I, the director, we knew that we were the right people for each other to make the film because she asked me to come audition. She just had a little handheld camera in her apartment and we just couldn't get through the scenes without crying with laughter. And her camera's shaking and it's like the worst camera work ever. But we both knew like, okay, we both think this is some of the funniest, most ridiculous satirical shit that we've ever come across. Look at that subtle off-white colouring. A tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God. It even has a watermark. And then we also had the crew who either were on that side or who quit and left. And there was sort of no in-between at all. So yeah, very divisive piece. You like Huey Lewis on the news? They're okay. Have you ever had any wags, any clever people at weddings who are behind the DJ desk and start playing Huey Lewis and you have to go? Yeah, no, stop that. In 87, Huey released this for their most accomplished album. I think they're undisputed masterpieces hip to be swear. We'll have less of that, thanks. Unfortunately, I don't get invited to many weddings. Another way of solving the problem. Christian, such pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to subscribe and click the bell icon to keep up to date. You can listen to my Radio 1 movies and TV podcast, Screen Time on BBC Sounds. And you can find these interviews in full on BBC iPlayer by searching movies with Ali Plumb.