Christian Bale stars in "Batman Begins"
© Warner Bros. Pictures
Christian Bale stars in "Batman Begins"
© Warner Bros. Pictures
Christian Bale stars in "Batman Begins"
© Warner Bros. Pictures
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Christian BaleKatie HolmesCillian Murphy Discusses Playing Scarecrow
How heavy was the suit and what was your first reaction when you saw yourself in it?
Actual poundage, I’m not sure of how heavy it really was. And my first reaction in seeing it... I remember I tried on one of the old ones for the screen test they had to do, but, you know, it didn’t fit exactly. It hadn’t been made for me. The first time I put on the one that actually was made for me, it was like I said. It was like looking at a creature. It kind of wasn’t me in there at all, and that’s how I liked it. I didn’t want to have any kind of recognition of myself or Bruce Wayne, once he’s inside of it at all.
But it was kick as well as a high. You’re getting into that suit and you’re looking in the mirror and seeing it, and staring back at yourself. And, you know, it’s a long shoot. It was about seven months. You can start to get kind of blasé about it. “Well, you know, I’ve got a Batsuit on…” That was why I kept the images around me all the time, to remind myself of that initial feeling. Because it was a very strong feeling when I first put that on of feeling like a very dangerous creature to be around.
Batman and Bruce Wayne each have interesting foils including Alfred, James Gordon, Scarecrow, etc. Which character that you played off of told you the most about your own character?
I think certainly Michael Caine as Alfred in terms of the past. I think that he certainly was the most informative of the characters because, first of all, he plays it brilliantly. He’s so good. He’s funny but you know you really get to feel and witness the pain that this guy has been through, and that the ones who love him have had to sit back and see him go through, being tortured through his teenage years and everything, and not really being able to reach out and help him. Everybody else kind of is controlled more by Batman, whereas the Alfred character is the only one who’s able to get behind that mask and know exactly who Bruce is and knows his weak points and can push any buttons that he wants, because he’s his surrogate father.
Of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney – which one of the previous Batmans added the most amount of credibility to the role?
You know, they did it in different ways. I think what Adam West did was great. I just didn’t realize when I was watching it as a kid that it was a spoof, you know? It was a very campy kind of thing, performance that he was doing. After that, I would say Michael Keaton because of Tim Burton and the way that he approached the movie. However we didn’t want to do anything like that either. To me, that isn’t what I was seeing in the graphic novels at all. And I’d never really felt the danger of Batman that I felt should be appropriate.
It was also in reading a forward by Frank Miller that I believe is in "Batman Year One" about when he first saw Batman and how he says to him Batman was never funny. And I liked that because that’s what I had always thought. That this should not be that there can be a lot of comedy through it, but coming from other people. But the actual Batman himself, you know, I think had gotten lost in a lot of little one liners and quips that reduced the edge and the reason that he had become this Batman in the first place, which was this incredible pain, anger, guilt and rage that he had within.
Is he mentally ill?
I think probably some psychiatrists would say yes for hanging on to that pain intentionally, keeping hold of it and letting it rule much of his life. I wouldn’t say he’s schizophrenic or something, like it’s an actual – or multiple personalities where he’s unable to control. He can control it, but it’s intense discipline that he’s learned to be able to function in everyday life. And in many ways, the Bruce Wayne character, the playboy, the cad, etc., the business man, he’s actually the mask. He is the performance. Nobody would say it would be a healthy state of mind to be in, but I’m not suggesting that he’s actually got multiple personality disorder or anything like that. Although, personally, I think that’d be quite an interesting way to take it if you wanted to really go to extremes with him.