As an actor, you become a weirdo The Irish Times

You know, as an actor, you become a weirdo, says Christian Bale. You can follow people on the streets and say, No, I’m really not a stalker. You see people. You follow them and capture the mannerisms.

I’m sure Bale isn’t any weirder than the rest of us. But he certainly has a striking manner. For a man who easily slips into the game of other nationalities and who traveled the world as a child, he remains almost surprisingly English. He speaks in a growling, blokeish voice that would sound perfectly at home from the cutout of an Essex pub on a Sunday afternoon. The words tumble down in a veritable avalanche. There is nothing theatrical about him.

We’re here to discuss more than anything else his role in David O Russell’s peculiar, messy, yet deeply fascinating Amsterdam. In his third film for the American director, Bale plays a doctor who becomes a suspect in a murder case during the Great Depression. Everyone is into this thing. Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Robert de Niro, Taylor Swift… We could fill the article with none other than the famous people who surround Bale in this political comedy.

I am not a method actor. I just figure out every day and then see what happens

I am particularly interested in the cinematographic treatment of American fascism at this time. What could be more American than a dictatorship built on business? someone says. Few audiences will resist drawing parallels with a recent presidency.

I believe that when a film becomes public property, Bake says slightly evasively. So whatever you think, you’re right, no matter how different your opinions are on this. As for relevance and timeliness these days…well, yes. But I like other people watching it. But, for a long time, people have said that America’s business is business.

Bale has been juggling questions for a long time. He’s been in the limelight ever since he starred in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun 35 years ago, and he was, at the age of 13, already a bit of a veteran. He was born in Wales, but considers himself English (and now carries an American passport). His family looks like something out of a Booker-nominated novel. Her mother was a circus performer and her father was a talent manager.

They lived in Oxfordshire, Bournemouth, Portugal, and when they were 17 they finally moved to Los Angeles. He was eight years old when he got his first acting gig in a commercial. After Empire of the Sun, he became the main breadwinner. It wasn’t fun. So there has always been a bit of disgust because of that, he told the Guardian in 2018.

He wouldn’t have been the first child actor to sink into unhappy obscurity, but he did manage to achieve modest success throughout the 1990s. You can see him in Gillian Armstrongs Little Women and Todd Hayness Velvet Goldmine. His jaw-dropping turn in 2000s American Psycho was slow to register, but his portrayal of the title role in Christopher Nolans Batman Begins cemented his status as a star of the new millennium. Rumors began to emerge of his method acting approach. But he doesn’t quite seem to buy that.

I was obviously very honored to be able to work for the second time with Robert De Niro, he says from Amsterdam. And I was just with him in New York, doing a lot of interviews, and I kept having people say to me, Oh, you’re a method actor. And I was sitting next to De Niro, who studied with [Lee] Strasbourg. I went away for the weekend [of study] at the YWCA near Tottenham Court Road. I am not a method actor. I just figure it out every day and then see what happens.

He had his controversies. I remember approaching the Dorchester Hotel in 2008 to interview Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight and being surprised to see news crews gathered on Park Lane. It turned out that he had been arrested for allegedly assaulting his mother and sister at the hotel. No charges have been laid.

A few months later, a tape emerged of him yelling at cinematographer Shane Hurlbut on the set of Terminator Salvation. He issued an abject apology. Please don’t let my incredibly embarrassing meltdown overshadow this film and take away all the hard work of these people, he pleaded.

So we know Bale is a complicated man. Yet when asked about his art, he does his best to pass it off as just a craft business. It just shows up and does the job.

I don’t really watch it myself, he says, there’s no strategy. There is no kind of tactic.

He played Batman in three movies. He was Moses in Ridley Scotts Exodus: Gods and Kings. He was the psychotic American in American Psycho. Christian Bale is someone who wears movies

He finds David O Russell to be the right kind of filmmaker for this approach. He steered Bale to an Oscar in The Fighter and another nomination in American Hustle. Bale might be seen as the leader in Amsterdam, but, in truth, that responsibility is shared between him, Robbie and Washington. These three playmates who met during World War I, moved to the eponymous Dutch town, and then found themselves caught up in a New York whirlwind following a puzzling murder.

I just find it more fun to think of each character as a supporting role, he says. Because it takes all that responsibility off my mind, the boredom of having to be a leading man. I never quite understood the point of that. It certainly does not come naturally. And then the physical transformations? You got me a little there in that I don’t like seeing myself. If I see myself too much, I say: Oh, my God! I just don’t want to see it. Ha ha!

Let’s examine this idea that he doesn’t consider himself a leading man. His CV would go against this theory. He played Batman in three films. He was Moses in Ridley Scotts Exodus: Gods and Kings. He was the psychotic American in American Psycho. Christian Bale is someone who wears films. Put it in the center and you can be pretty sure your edifice will rise.

I confess that I never considered myself a decent leading man, he says. Even if I’m the lead in a movie, I try to pretend to have a supporting role. I just found throughout my life that I had more fun when I was in a supporting role and people got more daring. I think something that really defines David’s movies is that he deals with characters that in the more mainstream and mainstream movies would just be supporting roles that you might see briefly. But they are fascinating characters.

He gets rid of the idea of ​​being a method actor, but we know that Christian Bale prepares like a professional. You can see it in the finished work. His character in Amsterdam was badly damaged during the war. He has lost an eye and is permanently locked in a kind of surgical blindfold. I imagine he had to go through the files to fully understand.

The physical preparation was more about looking at some of the horrible diseases that many vets suffered from, he says. They called it the yips back then. PTSD was not something that was really recognized. These poor gentlemen were told they would come back as heroes and very few of them were treated that way.

Bale and Russell have been planning Amsterdam for about six years. What they ended up with may be too diffuse for some viewers, but it delivers the kind of complex, socially conscious big comedy you rarely get from mainstream audiences. And it’s a pleasure to see so many stars stretch into relatively small roles. The city of Amsterdam exists as a place of emotional comfort. The place where the heroes came alive. Is there such a place? Having lived all over the place, he must be able to name a few candidates.

Really, it’s more of a stain in my head. It’s more for me a way of feeling, he says. It’s not about having to be in a particular place to feel that.

He does a good job of appearing engaged. He does a good, seemingly grateful job. He doesn’t care what the company has done to him.

I kind of rely on others to notice this or any changes that have happened, he said happily. Besides being incredibly grateful and surprised that someone still hires me to keep doing this.

Amsterdam opens October 7