Ep53 - Christian Bale / "Hostiles"

know what happened. Did they like it? The restaurant, Just people watching lots of documentaries about Dick Cheney and trying not to think about him since I was just playing him last night, and remember to about ourselves. Yeah, you guys good with the fires, you know, we had to get out, We have to leave our place. But the light was beautiful when I got on my roof and got to a bunch of photographs because it was incredible.

It looked like more to or man like that some of the videos I say more more just the shape of the land and all that on fire. It's just like, yeah, exactly, Mussa is going to be there today, isn't he Massa? Oh? Really I like him being there because he just either either he says nothing, which is right, and in front of his guilt he actually talks. Oh he does maybe maybe when it's weird on he's on the topic exactly.

But the most famous scenes David that he did David or Russell film and they were going through the edit at the end and everything, and he was showing Mussa and Mussa didn't say anything, and David tells us to everybody, so I'm not talking at school bes He said to Mussa, what do you think he mus haven't said anything? Muss Mussa when if Mussa or speak Musson or like he's superb. He's one of these such a right eyes. I'm gonna

be talking to him soon. Actually, you get the shot right, Yes, the first shot of you in the movie I think is amazing, Like calcification of hatred is what's going on, and that would be a hero shot normally the framing, but it's fascinating the way that's kind of turned on its ear and the so yeah, well that's what's nice in it about the film, right, it's the lack of I mean, look, please don't talk to me about knowledge of film. You know, I have virtually none. People tell

me and you can. I'm sure you know the Searches. Um. Yeah, people tell me, oh, this film reminds me of the Searches. I've never seen the Searches. People can't believe why I haven't seen I've never seen the sound of music. I've never seen the wizard sound different things? What you mean it was? He had never seen the sound of music. Somebody alwaysked him way late in life, like what movie have you not seen that? People would be surprised and it was the sound of music. Yeah, but that was

his job. It's not my job to watch everything, you know. True, I think it directed jobs. I think more they have to probably someone like Hurts would disagree with me, but but but more likely they have to know the conversation of the film right and respond and shooting with what I do. I don't feel like you need to know. That's good if you don't have to do it at all, go easier. Any I get told hostiles and most peoples of the people of the Searchers, which I hear is

a good thing. That is a good. That is a good. That's a tough one to be a touchdown, but it's a good one. Here you go, Well, here we go, we're rolling. Okay, we have Christian Bale here today, star of Hostiles. Um I love this film, love this genre. You've worked in the genre a couple of times now actually with actually had been faster here last year, your co star in this and in three ten. And not to dive in on a craft question immediately, but I thought I love the way he put the notion of

what acting is. He said, I'm not an artist, I'm a builder, which I really liked because it kind of demystifies it in some way. It translates it to a trade, which I kind of dig I guess, And I'm just curious your thoughts on those notes that um my feeling is, Um, I don't really know what it is, and I'm quite happy doing that. You know, I don't really know why

I like doing it. I know the one thing I think that is very important in life and I want my kids to find is an obsession with something, hopefully a healthy obsession. I know I'm obsessed with it because I love it and I hate it as well, but I keep going back to it, and um uh, there's something about it that really intrigues me. As we were saying, just now it's got nothing for me to do with love of film. I do love film, but that's not

why I do it. It's exploration of characters. I've got no idea, Like in my head, I don't know how to act. Really. I know how to play certain characters and that's it. But you know these actors who can come in and just sort of play one character in a different I have no idea how they do that at all. Maybe that takes some training which I lack and I've never had, um at all. Um. So that's how I look at it. I just look at it as I'm someone who studies one person in great depth

and that's it. Um. People decide, you know what what to call that? Yeah, maybe I'm more of like a journalist. You investigate, and I like sometense you call them me an investigator. That feels important. Yeah. Well, that having been said, is there any like do you subscribe Stanislavski at all? I mean, you know, there's absolutely nothing. I have no idea what any of it really means. I don't know what people peg you as method, but I don't think that's really like You're not what it is, you know.

I mean, I go what does that mean? You know? Um? I you know, if I have to get out to scene and they're waiting for me, um, and it's a Western I'm not going to say, is there a horse? Can I ride a horse? No? Otherwise I walk. Now I'm not going in the car ada to me, I go, is that method? Because I cannot use anything but what they would have had at the time. Now I'll be jumping in the car. I'm getting wired. I've got a mic on me, you know, and you have to you know,

use your imagination. UM for me. I think maybe people say method, maybe because I find it very difficult to jump in and out of being me and then being a character. If I'm just me on a set, I can't play a character because people know me too much and I can't stop. So I'll start coming out with things that are me answering the question instead. So I do a ride on the set, always going I want

to be more the character than me. But that's because probably because I've had no training and I don't know how to switch it on and off really quickly, and so people go, oh, his method, I don't know. Yeh. Was this one a particularly hard one to shake? Given you know, as I was talking about that shot and how it's just this calcification of hate. I mean, the man is kind of just years of hatred built up to the point that he's just numb. And so was that a difficult one to shake at the end of

each day? No, because I think he's very soulful underneath, you know, and he's very smart. He recognizes that whilst he is the boss of his own domain, um, that he is a puppet um uh and the puppet masters of the politicians back in d C. And very much for me, it's an indictment of politics and parliticians. Um. These men who go and live and die based on decisions that are made in Washington and then whimsically they

make a different choice. Um. And so he's somebody who has done horrendous things, seen horrendous things done too friends of his. Um. You know, had to listen to friends of his screaming and pain and dying, you know, for years and years. Um uh. No, he in the big picture, UM, he is not the victim of genocide. You know, he is enacting that. Um. But for him, he's doing his duty.

He's a soldier and and he does it well and comes to like every soldier seems to talk about um, you know, when you're when you're when your brother in arms is killed mutilated, then you cannot help but start to crew hatred for the person who did that, whether or not you ever would have had any hatred for them in the first place. In fact, they look at Blocker and Yellowhawk can say, well, Blocker would be Yellowhawk and yellow Hawk's position, and there is a great respect

between the two of them, um. And we see them come to give up the the the the the armor around each of one of any of each of them as they get closer to the blocker. Civilization is that something that kind of rings in the contemporary in a certain sense. So it's not it's not like you canings ratio, there's no difference. It's not like you can, you know, track down an old Civil War veteran or something like

that and talk to them. But like, how did you prepare in terms of talking to people and maybe trying to build the character that way? Did you? I used experience from actually past times going and talking with marine

recon groups down at Pendleton UM. Here in the difference between them speaking groups and speaking one on one um looking at the Army Times, which is very surprisingly open about the psychology of combat and how it affects soldiers, and one of the first publications to really start talking about PTSD, which obviously in the time of hostiles, people didn't even there wasn't a thing. There wasn't melancholia, and maybe some people called it that, but it was just ignored,

really on on on on the most part um. And then what what I thought about was, well, what would his childhood have been. He would have been born in nineteen fifty. Soldiers were not meant to be fighting in the Civil War twelve years old, but they were. There were plenty of twelve thirteen, fourteen year old fighting. So I said, all right, he was at Shiloh, right in the middle of the hornets nest um. That's what he's

been brought up on. That's what he understands. That what that's what he does best, and and it's ingrained, you know, in his marrow. You also learned the Shayen language for this role, which I'm always fascinated about language because it it can reveal, you know, how how a culture communicates with one another within anything, reveals a lot about that culture, and I'm just curious, just beyond the nuts and bolts of how to speak it, did learning Cheyenne reveal anything

to you about the Cheyenne people? That was, they were fascinating things that Chief Philip would teach me, which I don't. I do apologize, it's been a year and I can't going in great details. But more of a circular thinking than a linear thinking. Um and and I liked using that with Blocker, that he's a very linear thinker. You know, he's he's very um, short and abrupt, but he he truly understands his you know, enemy who has been forced to be his enemy. You know, he's not his true

natural enemy whatsoever. It's it's just because he's been told he has to go do this. It has becomes so um. But yes, a very very different way of thinking. A sense of forgiveness towards him that absolutely kills him. You know that that that he sees that yellow Hawk is capable of, that affects him deeply. Um. And they're just a sense in himself of understanding he is attacking their land,

they are defending their land. There's an enormous difference in that he may now be fighting out of sincere grief because of lost loved ones. But they arrived and we're taking you know, the land. This is an act of genocide. Um. So that that he that's always present in his mind in his dealings with Yellowhawk, even though he doesn't want

to let that show um at all. And and this this, this this sense of forgiveness that Yellowhawk has which helps him in many ways to actually learn how to be human and interact again after so many years just in the company of men who kill. Uh. Just just talking to Scott about this yesterday actually, Um, the horsemanship element of this, he said that, you know, I guess it was the Wrangler or somebody mentioned that he had never seen an actor and his horse so at one with

each other. Yeah, I love that horse Seeker is the name is. Yeah, we just used him again in the film. I just finished doing. Uh yeah, no it yeah it clearly he definitely was assessing me for a while, and I was failing to begin with. He wasn't he wasn't responding. He could he could tell that I wasn't up to it. And then uh, and then I just kept practicing practice in and eventually he went yet, all right, he's my man. You know, I'll do what he's asking me too. And

he was incredible. And how far back does your experience with horses it goes? Because we all piled into a varian when I was a kid and disappeared off to Portugal and didn't go to school for a year. We just kind of lived on a farm and sort of lad this sort of barefoot huckle berythin kind of existence for a bit. And there was this eccentric lady who had a horse stables and she m after having a few that day, she took me into a lunch paddock and it's the first time I've been on a horse.

I've been run over by horses, by little Shetland ponies, but it was in a lot of mud, and bizarrely, they actually they stamped on my chest, which they really do, but I was in mud so it didn't cause a lot of damage. But she put me in lungeon paddock bare back and just had me riding bare back, cantering around, laying backwards, laying forwards, laying sideways, standing up on horse, all of that. So you just get very comfortable. So my technique is probably abysmal, but I feel like I

know how to stay on that horse. You know, I've been bucked off a bunch of times. I would take this horse down to the beach. I was like eleven. It was Portugal. It was you know, the early eighties. We would she would just let us take the horses. Me my sister would head down to the beach. You know, she never asked us for anything. We just take them. They would gallop. We go to a local bar. It was Portugal. They didn't care. I'd go in there. I'd

get a beer. At that age, we'd be like wrapping up our horses outside and then we'd sort of fall asleep, and the horses were walkers back. So I had a nice comfort and a history with horses. And this horse seeker is extraordinary. I guess that adds a whole of their element. Though. When you're trying to act on top of a horse, though, right, I mean you get your mind done. Yeah, yeah, you can't be you can't be worried about the horse you got. You guys just gotta

be second nature. Yeah. Uh. You know, this is one another of many many explorations in another dialect, another culture that you've you know, explored throughout your career, and uh in correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think you've ever played a Welshman? Is that true? Uh? Truly true? Yeah? Yeah? No, is that funny? Yeah? I mean saying that though. I mean I was born on a dairy farm in Wales, um but I was only there until I was one

and a half. I don't have memories of it. I only remember just you know, I've visited, I've gone back to have a west, but I don't remember. Actually, you know until the as you wanted a half? Who does? I just had this strange kind of question of do you ever sense or feel like you given that you explore so many different things that are different from your own background, do you ever feel like a sense of losing yourself through all of these different explorations don't make

any sense? Well, you mean in my life, just losing touch with your own I don't know, not heritage, but just like having never No, I know what you mean. I think, I think, well, let you tell me if you if I get what you mean. Whilst you're filming, Yes, you do feel that because you're just the way that I approach things. I think that maybe better trained actors might be able to hang onto themselves a little bit better. I'm not suggesting I'm sort of some victim of what

I do. I'm in control of it all the time, but I don't know how to do it unless I kind of keep that character present an awful lot. And so, you know, like I was saying to my family this morning, I'm back. I'm talking again. You know. The character wasn't a big chatty Cathy, and now all of a sudden, it's like I would just want to talk a mile a minute. There's you do feel a release and like I'm me again. There's a freedom to it, but enjoy that.

It's interesting. You know. I've never never had, you know, a year go by without pretending to be somebody else. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but it is what it is. It's a living yeah, and it's more than that as well, and I like it being I like it trying to be more than that. You know, as an Englishman, you sort of try to downplay always the meaningfulness of things because it's it's it's not that

it's not meaningful. It's incredibly meaningful to me, but I don't like to announce that because you hope that it's in the eye of the beholder. You know, it's up to them. Hey, it is what they think it is. They think it's horrible, it is horrible, they think it's fantastic, is fantastics, whatever they think it is. It's not for me to tell anybody what they think is. But you know, there's a there's you know, look, we're all living our lives. We wanted to be as you know, fulfilling, as weak

as as it can be. So you want to try and do that in every moment. So I try to incorporate that in the acting as well, make that meaningful. Um. And Yeah, inevitably sometimes you do, especially on very long shoots, you kind of go where have I gone? Like? Who am I right now? You do feel a little bit like sometimes you're treading water and is this really hell? Fee um? But like I said, but then the obsession you sort of can't help but kick it. You know you can't help, but want to get back to it.

You don't want to kick it. Do you ever think about hanging it up? I mean, we've all the time, all this time, I'm always doing that. I love it, I hate it. I think that is the nature of being obsessed with something, isn't it. It's you know, because it can be so satisfying, it can also be so disappointing as well. Um, And you know there's many different elements to doing this. You know. Sometimes you look and you go, man, it's not the sort of purest thing

I thought it was going to be always. Um, but you know that's life. You deal with it, and you know, I'm not going to whine about it at all. Um, But yeah, I'm constantly saying that, Yeah, I think that's it, and then I kind of sit back and go what else can I do? And I don't often come up with an answer. Particularly, it seems to Lewis is doing like he's he's hanging it up now, but I feel like he'll be back. I get very strong compulsions to

hang it up. But I'll just never say that because with you on that, I suspect I probably will, you know, prove myself a liar track. Um, do you feel like there are things still left undone for you in terms of this career? I hope? So, you know, like if you were to hang it up today, would you feel like I've done what I wanted to do? I've done more than I ever thought. You know, I didn't. I didn't expect to have done. But what I've done, I

didn't dwell on it an awful lot. I didn't. I was just sort of in the moment, going, this is pretty good. You know, this is nice. I didn't see this coming, and you know it kind of happened and here we are. Um, but you know, of course, you know it would be a big sort of a little death, wouldn't it if you find that you've actually saw across every rubicon you've put simbly? Can so? I hope? So yeah, let's talk about Scott Cooper a little bit, um, like

I said, and tell your right to you. I feel like when you work with Scott he brings some of your best workout. I still think that Out of the Furnace and certainly Hostiles is some of your finest work. So that relationship. Can you talk about that? And and uh, you know that's certainly just my opinion. But why do you think it is that you turn up different work.

It's it's a funny thing, he just um, he kind of it's this invisible quality to Scott, which which I mean is a compliment in that he doesn't attempt to kind of imprint himself upon his films. He likes that. He really loves the characters. Maybe it comes from acting. I'm not really sure, um why that is. I don't really think we need to analyze it. Um, but he just, Um, it just feels very simple. It feels very conversational. He

likes seeing what I'm going to come up with. Um. He likes asking what the hell was that all about? Why was I doing that? You know, I like having a given answer to that. Um. It's it's just a very good and easy going back and forth, you know. Um. There's there's very you know, just sort of very straightforward talk between the two of us. We we like analyzing the hell out of everything and then kind of forgetting

that and pushing it away and just going with your gut. Um. But with all of that knowledge that you've gained through sort of analyzing the hell out of it previously. Um, it's there always in the in the in the back of your mind. So it kind of brings itself to the four when you are sort of going just with your gut what feels right, and that's the essence of it.

It feels right, you know. I like working with him as much as any director I've ever worked with, you know, he's extraordinary, And just to branch out away from hostiles a little bit, I wanted to cover some other things here. Uh. It only occurred to me as I was prepping that this year is the thirtieth Niver to Empire at the Sun. All right, yeah, thirty years. Um, you know, I feel I've been doing this way, not that I'm trying to push you to quit. By the way, it's amazing that

I've been doing this for thirty years. And I have no advice for people starting out in acting. I still don't. When people ask me, wait, what's you know? How do you do it? I go, I don't know, and they go really three decades and I still don't know. And I do that with every single part that comes up. I get it, and then I go, oh god, what

have I done. I've forgotten how to do this, And I sort of, you know, try to figure out, you know, get my way out of this one, and you know, convinced people that I do know what I'm doing, and and it really ends up kind of being sort of a dialogue with yourself. Really is the way it is. The answer to me always it's always just like keeping

myself interested. And and that's when, you know, ironically that also seems to be when people seem to respond most is when I'm actually not thinking about them in the slightest, you know, um, and and and and one consistent thing is always be very very happy making the fool out of yourself, you know. And it's not you. It isn't you up there, So don't get hung up on being embarrassed. Don't get embarrassed, you know, just push all that out

the way. It's not you, you know. And until you do that, I think that I think that it must be a horrible job. But the minute that you kind of have this it's not you, it doesn't matter what you do, it's not you in that moment, you know, Um, then then you really start to find some some joy in it. Well, that performance from Empire the Side, I find it to be. It's still one of the greatest child actor performances of all time. I don't think Spielberg has often talked about in terms of how he works

with actors. People tend to talk about the spectacle of it all. But I'm curious what what you took away from that experience? What impact did he have on you as a young man finding your voice as it's not fresh in my memory, but it's good. It's for me. It's it's during the process good memories. Afterwards bad memories, but that's because of the way people reacted. And I saw that, oh they were treating me differently, so that heired, but during it, nothing but good memories of the process.

How did Stephen work with me? Um? I remember him saying he always liked my first take best, and you know it occasionally just sort of mess around with me off camera and stuff. But um, you know, I just I just I just I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed being away from school. I really enjoyed traveling in places. I really enjoyed the sort of community that you felt

in making the film. Um and And I liked, even at that age, even at twelve thirteen, that I liked, uh trying to figure out how to be this other person, you know, who came from a totally different background to me. Um And, I really enjoyed that. It just I don't know where that comes from, but it just really kicked in there of me going, I love this, this this you know, it's being necessary to obsess about a person

for a certain out of time. You know, even at that age, I went out get a kick out of this, enjoyed it. Have you ever seen that somebody put together a video where they took you You're scene from Rescue Dawn where you're talking to Steve's on and you are describing essentially a scene from Empire of the Sun where you but right, it was a true story. Indeed, his childhood.

You see the fire pilots and and they were you know, they were strafening his U house and neighborhood, and instead of him hating them, he looked and said, I want to be them. And exactly like on the Rooftop and Empire the Sun, he looks at them and they're like gods to him. They edited that together and it felt like flashback. It was kind of interesting. It's kind of amazing. Also, your work with Chris Nolan on the Batman franchise obviously

launched this whole new level of exposure for you. And something I'm curious about is, just as someone who is so fiercely protective of keeping your personal life private, did that provide just a mixed blessing and absolutely mixed emotions about it. I'm always eternally grateful to Chris because allowed I mean, for instance, rescued Dawn Werner and I have been trying to put that together for a few years. American psycho Mary Harron and I have been trying to

put that together for a few years. No one was interested why because of me? They kept saying, why do you want in for it? Chris cast me in Batman and suddenly you know, I'm in American side came before that. We have to fight tooth and nail for it, you know, to do that and everything. But you know, like suddenly everyone said, yeah, all right, okay, yeah, we'll go with him. Um it did change everything. Um you know, it was the first um time I've done a film of that magnitude.

That was a real learning curve for me. Um with it, and um it did change things. Um I wrestled with it for a long time. I still do on occasions. But UM, you know, I'm I'm learning just a except except the good things, you know, bring bring focused on all the good side of it, and it's brought me that that, like I said earlier, way more than I ever could have expected. You know, I'm not talking financially,

I'm talking in terms of opportunity sees. I'm talking in terms of the people I get to meet, the access, you know, the opportunities and work um with that. You know um and and so you know that will always be very very very special for me, despite the fact that much of my memories of it is sitting in a pup tent just waiting because in my my suggestion, I said, no one can ever see me without the cow long. They cannot. You cannot bust blow apart that mystery,

so we must not. So I've got to be in a tent the whole time, and then seven months later, I'm like, oh my god, this is my idea. I'm still in it. So the irony there is that I think the American Psycho performance is what led a lot of the kind of fan world to include you on these kind of fan lists of who they wanted to see, as Bruce Wayne eventually interested in the early two thousands arts. So there you have it. Well, I guess you know, the true fans always saw that. You know, Bruce Wayne

had this great darkness to him. You know, there is a there is a philanthropy. Obviously hopefully there but it is something he's having a battle of monster, you know, within himself, and so I suppose that in that respect, you know, Bateman, Batman, they started to see that, well maybe this guy can do it. Have you seen Dunkerk yet?

I loved it, man, I kind of you know, knowing Chris, I feel like it's the culmination of so much that he's been aiming for, and he's been achieving incredible films beforehand, but that is just slight blissful. Watching that film. I was amasmerized by it. Yeah, I think it might be his best work. It's uh, there's this moment in the middle of it where it kind of clicked for me what he was doing with the timelines, and I just all the time I was fantastic. I said wow out loud.

I was just like wow in the middle of the and and it was for me. I looked at it for a bit and I was being too cerebral about I was looking at a one week, you know, one day, etcetera. And I was going trying to work it out, and I was enjoying that, and then I went, no, hold on, I'm thinking, I just like, let it happen. And that's when I really started to enjoy the whole experience. You know, it's it's an incredible film. Yeah, absolutely. I had Andy Serkis in here, Oh yeah a few weeks back talking

about his films that we're making the Jungle Book. Yes, and I wanted to talk about performance capture. Yeah, it's interestingly for you know, it's very interesting to me about that, Like, you know, is this just gonna be something for very specific films or is that the future of acting? You know, I don't know, because I've just gone through something where we used a great deal of prosthetics and we were talking about, you know, how amazing we felt. War of

the plan of the apes was the fact of the expressions. Now, Jungle Book is different because of the physiognomy. You know, I'm playing Baghear of the Panther, so you've got to take somebody's face and actually really morph it words. With an ape, it's far more human um in respect. There were scenes in the World's Planet the Apes where you just completely forgot that you were you were listening to

apes talking. You know, these the emotions were incredible, you know, and he's clearly, like, you know, the most experienced actor out there. So he's a wonderful person to start with. Um with this, and yeah, we're going to be doing a little bit more of that in a few days time. Um, it's surprising you very quickly. Just get used to having account. Don't have to drop the weight really quickly hanging around

your head. Um and uh. And then you know the question is, well, at what point are they going to be able to really get the human face and master that? And at what point does that mean we lease our likeness? Is essentially like, yeah, here you go, you can have my likeness and go and make a film, you know that, which doesn't sound nice. It's all to me that sounds that horror. Um. But you know, is there is there ever going to come a point where you go, oh,

you know what, I'm going to be chumpier for this. Well, you you don't have to do any thing. We're going to do that with digital capture later on, you know, Or will it be a world where, you know, prosthetics and digital capture kind of work together. I don't know the answer, but it's certainly was very enjoyable when Andy's just a hell of a fellow. We worked together back when I was nineteen years back was that we did

a film based on Saxo Grammaticus. Is um take on Hamlet, which was called at the time am lead uh and which is what Shakespeare then based handle it upon. He based it on Saxo Grammaticus his work. Yeah cool and yeah, being able to just hop back in and do whatever you're about to do the reshoots. You don't have to lose everything that you've done for Cheney for that because there's no kind of bald, bleached eyebrow canvas right now.

So it's perfect because they pull these dots all over your face and they want to see your skin as much as possible. So I'm actually in an ideal state of um being to be doing the motion capture. You just wrapped that the Dick Cheney yesterday thing yesterday with Adam McKay. It's a called back seat, is that what they're calling? Maybe not, it's probably not. It's probably working hard. Yeah, Yeah, I've seen the photos on set. It was uncanny. You looked.

You look incredibly similar to the man uh as a sort of scholar of this guy you were played to hire or hired to play. What did you learn about him that was striking? I learned a great deal, you know that first off, just in terms of portrayal of a man like that, that you quickly realize that mimicry is entertaining for you know, Skits five ten minutes. But he's gonna get very tiring over a film because you're

gonna be guy. Oh, stop trying so hard, you know what I mean, Like, give me some depth, give me actually something, give me a person properly. So the you know, absolute you should, you should, you should try to get down those mannerisms exactly, but then relax a little bit and just really go for the vibe of the person

um And hopefully we've achieved that. And and you know, like when you investigate any person, no matter what your political leanings, you are going to find things and people who you know despise the man are going to go How dare you say? There are nice things about Shaney? There absolutely are. He is recognized by everybody as a very wonderful family man. For instance, you know, when the Republican Party were absolutely you know, as an athema to be gay, his daughter came out as lesbian and he

didn't hesitate. Hey, I love you, darling, I'll always support you. He didn't care what the party said, um at all um. But he was, you know, a highly opinionated man and very much into the strong unitary executive, which is you know, extreme presidential powers. Um. And you know, I came to believe that this is a man who I could find no evidence that he financially gained. Yes, Halliburton kind of their stock went through the roof, but Obama continued to

use Halliburton afterwards. Yes, ridiculous mistakes were made. But then there's also what I attempted to do always was to really put myself in his shoes and not to judge him, but to truly try to understand him. And then it's for Adam to have the bigger perspective, and that that's going to make a far more entertaining film with the confusion of really presenting a human there rather than just sort of caricature. You know, we're clearly every filmmaker is

just anti changing. So I said that's to Adam from the get guy. I said, I'm gonna go for this, So I'm going to be taking his point of view. You know, I'm gonna be given every argument. There's a few arguments in there that I still can't understand. And unfortunately, I would have loved to have been able to meet the man. But I went through doing months of research because I thought, you know, if he's going to give me the time of day, if you know, maybe he'll

say ten minutes and he'll test me. And I thought he'll test me. He'll really kind of you know, run the game and and be chucking out all these acronyms of facts and dates just to see if I've done my homework. So I was like, I've got to have it all down. I can't be staring at notes. And then maybe maybe he'll let me hang out for the day and I'll get to see the man actually you know, you know, somewhat somewhat relaxed, stay as much as you can when you when you when you're interviewed somebody, but

in their home territory. And so I got to that point where I finally felt, you know, I've kind of cracked it, like you know, I think I pretty much. You know, I mean, you can never truly understand the whole person's life. You're doing a two hour story, you know, you're not doing an eight year story. But I said, right, I'm ready and I contacted production and I said, let's do it. Let's reach out. And I've spoken with a couple of friends of his and they said, it's bet

with you in a second. I don't know if that's correct or not. They said, it's been in a second. There's nothing you can say that hasn't been said to him before. You know, absolutely hit charity. But legal from the production side immediately said do not go anywhere near that. Do not go. And it was a strange experience because every single character I played, who who who is alive is a real character I've always met. And you gain an all for not knowledge from that, you know, because

you're not seeing their public persona. You're seeing that you know it was somewhat their private persona. And I do rude that I didn't get that opportunity, um, But so I had to, you know, use my imagination there in in in, in in how he would be. But you know, there's a lot of information out there. There's there's lots of video footage, there's many books you know, written by him, written by others, um. And you know, I was just buried very deep in his in his world. Maybe you'll

see him at the premiere. Yeah, I don't know. No, you started to touch on my next question, which was just this idea of avoiding mimicry, impersonation. Essentially you've played you know, Michael Burry, Dickie Ekland, Dieter Danglar. So yeah, just finding ways to actually breathe life into the person as a character, not just as this well, I think you kind of have to start from a real study of of yes, there's mannerisms, but but then you know

that's a fairly shallow study. And then you've got to start getting into why the hell are they doing what they're doing, and that's when it really starts to kick off. And then you've got to get that freedom, you know, to have a little bit license in there, um and uh and do you know your version of what that is. Otherwise I think it just becomes very tedious of watching somebody really desperately trying to convince you that they are this person, which is like, that's that's never gonna happen.

You know, you got you've got to catch the the whole um, you know, the or the person. That's what you're going for the last thing for me here, uh, with with just the sense of equality in the industry going on right now, and I find an interesting You've worked with a number of female directors, Jillian Armstrong, Jane Campion, Mary Harron, and Lisa Choladinko. Do you ask someone who of some status in this industry. I don't know, you know, if this is true, but presumably you could greenlight a

movie you're Christian Bale. Do you feel any kind of personal uh responsibility to work with a wide gamut of I think you pick somebody because they're the best of what they do, you know. I think there's something patronizing about saying I would I would, I would want to work with a female director because they are a woman. You want with them because they're bloody fantastic and they're talented.

And there's many, many, incredible talented the female directors and uh, every single one that you just mentioned that excellently experienced with, you know, and and they were phenomenal, um you know. So yeah, you know, it's a it's a it's a huge cultural shift that's happening right now, and hopefully it continues on doesn't just kind of become a fad that

dies out. It doesn't look like it's going to be that way um at all um and uh, you know, all strength to it and and and equally you know, in all respects in terms of just sort of film will only become far more interesting with way more perspectives being included. And that's everything, you know, that's that's that's ethnicities, that's um uh the whole, the whole gamut, you know. Um. And I would hope that you know, America um well would embrace that, you know, rather than kick against it, um,

because it would be much richer. Uh library of films that we would have to watch. We'll put movie is called Hustle Else. It opens December two. You should absolutely go see it. Christian Bale, thank you for being on the show Man. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You don't do this a lot, so I feel very privileged. Thanks you so much. Think it might be the first time I've done it. Maybe I've got very short term memory. A glance at just to make sure. Thanks for coming on.

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