A movie star is someone people look at and go, 'I want to be like that person'. There's the responsibility of desire. It's not something I'm interested in trying. I would fail miserably at it, so why even bother?
Christian Bale

All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You've said that you will commit to this part, and I just can't live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.
Christian Bale

An actor should never be larger than the film he's in.
Christian Bale

And being as I'm somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.
Christian Bale

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.
Christian Bale

But I enjoyed getting sick, I didn't mind it at all. So in that short amount of time, I did actually go from 121 right back up to 180, which is way too fast obviously. And that resulted in some doctors visits to get things sorted out.
Christian Bale

But I learned that there's a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there's not much else that can really get to ya.
Christian Bale

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.
Christian Bale

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.
Christian Bale

I don't think I'm like any of the characters I've played - they're all really far from who I am.
Christian Bale


I have a fear of being boring.
Christian Bale

I have this theory that, depending on your attitude, your life doesn't have to become this ridiculous charade that it seems so many people end up living.
Christian Bale

I like the idea of movies having a magic element. How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It's wonderful, isn't it?
Christian Bale

I mean, first of all, let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he wasn't really onto anything good. The number of times I'm treading on that damn thing or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It's really not practical.
Christian Bale

I never want to feel that I'm playing it safe.
Christian Bale

I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.
Christian Bale

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around.
Christian Bale

I tend to think you're fearless when you recognize why you should be scared of things, but do them anyway.
Christian Bale

I think trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do.
Christian Bale

I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I'm not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I'll just see what happens with it.
Christian Bale