Christian Bale

by Harrison Cheung

  What moved me were notes from Christian like this:

  Your friendship helps me get closer to fulfilling my goals. I truly appreciate your good nature toward me and value having you on my side.

  Love, Christian

  As our friendship grew deeper, Christian began to trust my opinions completely, so he fell easy prey to my own highly developed sense of humor. On a trip back to Toronto, I matter-of-factly told Christian that Celine Dion owned the hotel we’d be staying in. That didn’t seem too far-fetched as the Air Canada flight we were on featured Celine Dion singing the departure and landing videos with the song “We Were Born to Fly!”

  Celine Dion was our running joke of everything he hated about American-style stardom: She was Vegas, showy, a megastar with her own line of Celine Dion Sensational Body Lotion, Celine Dion Belong fragrance, Celine Dion Sensational Eau de Toilette, and Celine Dion Pure Brillance perfume. And, of course, Mister Indie Music could not stand the belting Diva Dion, but as a proud Canadian, I’d always list her as one of the many Canadians who had made it in Hollywood. So in the hotel lobby at check-in, I was astonished when a normally shy (but very inquisitive) Christian asked the front desk how often did Celine Dion visit.

  Christian in front of the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada.

  “Sir?” The surprised concierge said. “Celine Dion?”

  “Yes,” Christian wanted to know. “Does she personally stay here? Does she inspect your hotel often?”

  Only when he noticed that I had run off to laugh did he realize he had been had.

  “You lied to me!” he snorted. And it was his turn to playfully hit me on the shoulder. “That’s for lying! And that’s for making me think of Celine Dion for far too long!”

  Christian and little Mojo would often drive up into the Santa Monica mountains for the day. He liked hiking and dirt biking and the solitude of the hills, and he’d take a backpack full of scripts to read outdoors.

  While he was out, David swung into action.

  David’s approach to parenting intrigued me. Coming from a very traditional Chinese family, I thought my parents were over-protective, but compared to David, I was practically a latchkey kid. He poked around Christian’s wastepaper basket, looking for any telltale signs that his son was unhappy, using drugs, or masturbating excessively. (He didn’t wear gloves, by the way.) He knew where Christian kept his journals and poetry and he had keys to Christian’s filing cabinet. He made no apologies and got defensive when I questioned him.

  “This is Hollywood! How do you suppose a single parent can take care of a young and vulnerable son? I need to know who his friends are, what drugs he’s using, and who he’s sleeping with. Each one of them could be a dangerous influence on him! I’m his father!”

  “What are you doing?” I asked David the first time I followed him on this inspection tour. Christian’s room was dark brown with red velvet drapes drawn; call it dorm room macabre. I was shocked that his bed was low to the ground until I realized he didn’t have a box spring, just a mattress on the floor. I caught the earthy scent of candles and cigarettes and old books, and then realized that Christian’s room had an interesting underlying odor. I was reminded of a song that a Canadian poet, Meryn Cadell, had written about a boy’s sweater, noting it had “that slightly goat-like smell that all teenage boys possess.” It was no surprise to find hundreds of books piled everywhere. And on top of the books were hundreds of CDs opened and carelessly discarded—Oasis, Bjork, Green Day, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Belly, Beck, Doves, Badly Drawn Boy, Paul Westerberg. His floor looked like an earthquake had hit a music store. Scripts were all over the floor on a carpet in dire need of a good vacuuming.

  A bookshelf held a menagerie of what appeared to be assorted animal fetuses in jars. On the windowsill were a couple of dirty plates, forks, teaspoons, and filthy mugs full of crystallized tea and mold. Closer to his bed was a pile of girly magazines—English titles, I presumed, as I had never heard of any of them.

  “I have to see what my son is up to. Is he depressed or not,” David explained. He waded through the messy floor and showed me Christian’s windowsill, which had an array of little clumps.

  “You see,” David began, “my poor son has a morbid fascination with death and decay. He enjoys watching things rot and mold on his windowsill.”

  “Yuck,” I said. I took a closer look and tried to identify the blackening clusters on the sill.

  “Christian has always had an inquisitive mind,” David said proudly. “You see that? He’s experimenting with his own bodily fluids on pieces of bread. Some of that is blood. Some is spittle. There’s semen there. He wants to see what stimulates the largest amount of mold or takes the least time to decay.”

  I was horrified as David sniffed through Christian’s belongings like a bloodhound. Ever see Jeepers Creepers, when the Creeper sniffs through Justin Long’s dirty laundry? You get the picture.

  If the macabre gallery wasn’t enough, David would then grab Christian’s latest CD purchases, take them downstairs to the kitchen table, and read the lyrics on the CD insert.

  “I need to know what he’s listening to,” David explained again. “If the music is suicidal or hopeful. If the music is about loneliness or sadness.” Sometimes, David would scribble down notes while he read the lyrics so that he could analyze them in depth later. I had never seen anyone behave like this before!

  In 1995, during Christian’s dry spell, the American Film Institute decided to honor Steven Spielberg with a Life Achievement Award. After years of being criticized as just a pop director with big box office blockbusters, Spielberg impressed the critics with his 1993 Schindler’s List, demonstrating that the popcorn movie maestro could also create a serious film.

  Christian was invited to speak at the tribute. David was ecstatic. This would be an important networking opportunity for Christian to reestablish good relations with Spielberg and his prolific producers, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. And it would be good for Christian to get out there on a national TV special so that the world could see that the boy from Empire of the Sun had grown up into a handsome young man.

  Though the producers of the tribute offered Christian help with their writers, he chose to write his own speech. For some reason he didn’t have to clear his remarks with any of the producers.

  Tom Hanks was the host. Jim Carrey stole the night with a devastating, funny speech that finished with him telling Spielberg: “Up yours, man!”

  But Christian’s homage to Spielberg hit a couple odd notes:

  “When I recall working with Steven, I can remember a scene where I had to run down some stairs and say something particular obnoxious. And I was obnoxious throughout the film but this was obviously exceptional because I got slapped for it.

  “And we rehearsed this many times so that I wouldn’t actually be hit, so that the hand would just miss but it would look for real. We spent a long time perfecting this and then eventually we did a take.

  “So Steven shouts: ‘Action!’ I ran down the stairs and said my line and SMACK! She hit me! And she really wasn’t holding back! This was no light tap. And I looked up and Steven said: ‘Excellent! Excellent reaction!’

  “And I said: ‘Well good, I didn’t have to do very much because she hit me.’

  “And he said: ‘Oh, oh dear. Let’s make sure Christian doesn’t get hit again.’

  “So alright. I go back up and we do another take. I run down, I say my line and SMACK! Same thing again. I look up and relocate my jaw. And they convince me that it really was just another mistake. It’s never going to happen again.

  “So I say, all right.

  “Anyway, four or five times this happens and finally it dawns on me that she’s never going to miss. And what’s more, Steven had absolutely no intention of allowing her to miss.

  “And whenever I was out of earshot, he was giving her the thumbs up and saying: ‘Same again!’”

  While the audience tittered and laughed, Spielberg b
lushed beet red and covered his face. At one point, his wife, Kate Capshaw, turned to ask him if the story was true and you can see Spielberg wringing his hands, nodding.

  A couple days later, David called me, upset at a letter Christian had received from Spielberg. Though the letter thanked Christian for speaking at the tribute, David was horrified that Spielberg added: “I think you only got hit once. Any more would have been child abuse.”

  “Oh dear! What is the meaning of this?” David cried. He was sure that the letter was a thinly veiled warning. And Christian’s memories of making Empire of the Sun—did that face slapping really happen the way Christian described it? Could his son have been harboring resentment or bad memories all these years?

  Christian finished 1995 without doing much work; his only completed project was the voice-over work for Disney’s Pocahontas. Much to his father’s chagrin, his next five films were low-budget but high-prestige indie films shot in Europe.

  The first one, The Secret Agent, was set in nineteenth-century London and directed by Christopher Hampton. Christian had a small supporting role of Stevie, a mildly mentally challenged boy. Even with the strong cast that included Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Gerard Depardieu, and an uncredited performance by Robin Williams, the film was poorly received. It was only the second time as director for Hampton, who was better known as a screenwriter. Hampton had won an Oscar for the screenplay for Dangerous Liaisons and would earn another Oscar writing nomination for 2008’s Atonement.

  The next film Christian did was headed up by director Jane Campion, who was fresh off the success of her 1993 film, The Piano, and had decided to adapt the Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady as a starring vehicle for Nicole Kidman. Christian snagged a small part as Ned Rosier, an upper-class twit who falls in love with Pansy, played by Italian actress Valentina Cervi. The film reunited Christian with his Empire of the Sun costar John Malkovich, and his Swing Kids costar Barbara Hershey.

  To get her cast in character, Campion had asked Christian and Valentina to write love letters to each other in character.

  Though the film received mixed reviews and minimal box office, Christian enjoyed the shoot that took place in Italy, his favorite place in the world.

  Said Christian: “I fell in love 100 times a day in stunning surroundings whilst eating the best pasta in the world. Not a difficult choice. And the wine wasn’t bad either!”

  In fact, to David’s great delight, Christian had split with his longtime English girlfriend, Natalie, and was now dating his costar Valentina Cervi. Campion’s love letter assignment certainly must have helped! Christian took Cervi with him to Disney World when he was a presenter at the Discover Awards along with Star Trek star, Levar Burton. That was the first major event where Christian got to meet Baleheads in person and they reported back in cyberspace that Christian was charming, taller than expected, but had been spied chomping away on a turkey leg! Since his official bio said that he was a vegetarian (thanks to David), some fans were disappointed and posted their sentiments on Christian’s Web site. “I thought he was a vegetarian!” cried a typical post. “I saw him smoking!” revealed someone who was at Disney World.

  “I had no idea who the bloke I was presenting with was,” Christian later told me.

  “That’s Geordi La Forge from Star Trek! He wears those visors?” I was amused that Christian seemed hopeless when it came to recognizing any actors outside his circle.

  Christian was fast getting the reputation for being an actor who got into character for his roles. He had to juggle between characters Ned and Stevie, as production on The Portrait of a Lady overlapped with The Secret Agent.

  He told a reporter: “Because I was filming Secret Agent one day and then the next day I’d be rehearsing Portrait of a Lady and then straight back on Secret Agent, it was quite funny because I would realize just how different I was being. I’d never really realized that I did that before. But I did, on those, because I just would think: ‘Christ, if anyone from Portrait of a Lady came and saw me on this set, Secret Agent, they’d just think I was schizophrenic or something.’”

  Metroland, the third in his indie string, was a creative high point in Christian’s career. It was also my first opportunity to work on the film’s press materials. I designed the original poster and press kit, based on the London Underground logo, which eventually had to be changed from a circle to a square. Based on the book by Julian Barnes, Christian starred as a middle-aged Englishman, Chris Lloyd, who looks back at three stages in his life—as a teenager bored in “Metroland” suburbia, a struggling young photographer in Paris, and as a married-with-child father back in Metroland. A sexy drama costarring Emily Watson, the English actress who had won rave reviews for Breaking the Waves, Christian especially liked his raunchy love scenes with French actress Elsa Zylberstein, who played Annick, his girlfriend in Paris.

  In real life, Zylberstein and Watson were seven years older than Christian, even though both women played his girlfriends. Christian became good friends with Watson who enjoyed playing “mother” to his mood swings. In fact, Emily Watson was widely quoted in a number of magazines, including Angeleno and Deluxe, that she had nicknamed Christian “Tanty” for the tantrums he’d throw on set.

  Although Christian had flashed his bare butt for Prince of Jutland, to his fans’ delight, Metroland featured his first hot and heavy love scenes, including a flash of frontal nudity. Christian talked nonchalantly to a reporter: “It comes down to just pulling off your pants and standing there naked. Once they’ve seen everything, there’s nothing else to worry about.”

  Most actors will tell you that a movie set is the most unromantic place in the world, with bright lights, cameras, and crew milling about. However, in Metroland, Christian told me he had a torrid love scene that was shot across an alley in Paris, like a voyeur peeking in. Consequently, Christian and costar Elsa Zylberstein were alone in the apartment, listening to directions radioed across the alley from veteran British TV director Philip Saville, who was watching them from another apartment. In the scene, the young couple comes home and feverishly strip naked. Zylberstein then jumps into Christian’s arms so that he can carry her to the bedroom.

  “CUT!” Saville radioed across the alley after the end of the first take. “Christian! You’ve cocked up the scene!” The crew across the alley broke up laughing as it was Saville’s polite way of telling Christian that his tummy-tapping erection was very much in view.

  “There was,” Christian jokingly recalled, “a lot of spunk-taneity in that film.”

  There was another love scene between him and Emily Watson where the two actors were naked in a bed, wrapped in foil to keep warm. Saville, Christian explained, sat at the foot of the bed, giving them directions. But while Saville was talking, Christian felt Saville’s hand squeezing his toes. Since both actors’ feet were at the foot of the bed, Christian thought that Saville must have thought he was stroking Emily Watson’s toes!

  When a reporter asked Christian which character he identified with more—Chris, the married-with-child young man, or his best friend, Toni (played by Lee Ross), who remains a bachelor—he replied: “My life has been more like Toni’s, in that I don’t have and have never had, just in the way that I was brought up, a feeling of having to break free and get out of some place, because we never stayed anywhere long enough for me to get that feeling. I did at some point during, when I was about 12, 13, suddenly just want to be normal. I remember saying that a lot to Mum and Dad, going: ‘Why, why am I leaving and going to a different school now?’”

  Metroland also offered me a close-up experience with Christian’s attitude toward his fans and publicity. When Metroland was released on video in the U.S., Universal Studios, the video distributor, invited Christian to a dealer show at the Los Angeles Convention Center to sign autographs for an hour.

  “That sounds like fun!” I told him.

  “That sounds absolutely miserable,” he replied half-asleep on the couch.

  B
ut by the day of the show, I had convinced Christian that it would be a good turn to build relations with Universal, and to shore up his growing fan base who had discovered him on video. The Blockbuster chain had been particularly supportive, I reminded him.

  To my horror, when it was time to drive over to the Convention Center, I found Christian at home wearing a dirty (formerly) white T-shirt, unwashed khakis, and his favorite desert boots. The T-shirt reeked and had yellow armpit stains. His hair was greasy and he was unshaven, looking as if he had just returned from a weekend-long camping trip, sleeping and wrestling with Mojo.

  “You’re not going like that!” I exclaimed when I saw him.

  “I am and I will. If you dress up for these silly things, you’re telling them that they matter. They do not. It’s my way of giving them two fingers.” He gestured. (The two-finger salute, for non-Anglophiles, is the British version of flipping the bird.)

  As much as I tried, Christian would not change his mind. He was determined to show his disdain by looking like crap.

  On the drive from Manhattan Beach to the Convention Center, Christian was amused by my eye-rolling every time he stretched out his arm to show off the yellow armpits. And at the Center itself, I stood behind him sniffing out an odor-safe radius from where he was seated signing autographs. Years later, seeing Christian gruff and scruffy during The Fighter press junket brought back a flood of memories, complete with offensive scents, and I could imagine it was his way of reluctantly campaigning for the Oscars while passively conveying contempt for the press.

  The day after the Convention Center signing, I dragged Christian out to the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach to go to the GAP store. I couldn’t bear to see him in those nasty old white T-shirts, so I figured he needed to have more options in his closet. He was amused as I picked out several T-shirts in different colors.