Christian Bale

by Harrison Cheung

  In fact, the only one film that ever came about through WMA was the film Metroland—and that was through WMA’s London office. Of course, WMA UK providing misleading and erroneous information with regard to financing on that project!

  Aside from specific project foul-ups, she also did not provide Christian with any personal support one would expect from an agent. For example:

  She never visited Christian on the sets of Velvet Goldmine or Metroland—even when she was in London on business.

  She would not return Christian’s calls for months.

  She never attended any film festival screenings of his films.

  She continually blamed Christian for being selective in his script choices.

  She did not acknowledge the phenomena of his proactive fan base.

  She allegedly told Francis Ford Coppola that Christian didn’t like to read scripts.

  She booked appointments that could not be met—most recently, Tim Burton.

  She made emotional pleas to Christian not to take a meeting with Nick Stevens or to socialize with other agents.

  She made her attacks personal by badmouthing his family. With this lackadaisical approach to Christian’s career, there should be no doubt as to why he had to leave if he wanted to continue to work and thrive as an actor. For her to blame anyone else is simply scapegoating.

  David Bale

  While Christian’s career was heating up, so was his personal life. Just days after American Psycho premiered at Sundance, Christian eloped with Sandra “Sibi” Blazic in Las Vegas.

  The couple began quietly dating in the summer of 1999, after reportedly meeting at a backyard barbeque thrown by Winona Ryder and managed to keep their relationship under the radar of any press. Standing 5 feet 11 inches tall, stunning Sibi had attended USC, did some fashion modeling, and even appeared in celebrity makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin’s book Face Forward before she began working as a personal assistant for Ryder.

  The couple tied the knot on January 29, 2000, just a day before Christian’s twenty-sixth birthday.

  While David was all smiles to the newlyweds, in reality, he did not take the news well. It was dawning on him that he was losing control of his son. Christian had defied his career advice about American Psycho, and it had paid off. And Christian was beginning to question some of the financial decisions his father had made on his behalf.

  A few nights after Christian and Sibi got married, David and I sat together at the pub in Barnabey’s Hotel in Manhattan Beach. He was wallowing in his fourth pint, bemoaning the fact that his son had married suddenly and secretively. I was doing my best to console him.

  “David, I’m sure Christian had his reasons.”

  “You don’t understand!” David was practically weeping. “I’ve lost my son! I’ve lost my son!”

  “I’m sorry, David . . .”

  But then David angrily shook his head, raised a pint to the heavens, and bellowed,

  “HOW MUCH SHARPER THAN A SERPENT’S TOOTH IT IS TO HAVE A THANKLESS CHILD!”

  The pub went silent. I wanted to crawl under the table.

  The year 2000 would be a major turning point for Christian and David. Adding to David’s misery over his son’s marriage, David had more problems. The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service now known as Citizenship and Immigration Services) had discovered that David had long overstayed his six month visitor’s visa. He had been stalling INS proceedings against him begun in 1999 by claiming medical duress. David steadfastly claimed that he was unable to fly and therefore unable to be deported. He produced two doctor’s letters—one wasn’t even from a doctor—to keep the INS at bay with claims of medical problems that made it impossible for him to board an airplane. But after overstaying his visitor’s visa for almost eight years, the INS finally issued a deportation order. It looked like David’s California dreaming had come to an end.

  Christian and Sibi at the Sundance Film Festival.

  [10]

  Post-Psychotic

  “Popcorn movie: A Summer action flick, not monumental, a good waste of time.”

  —Urban Dictionary

  American Psycho was the breakthrough role that Christian needed. Thanks to his dedication, he transformed himself physically from the lanky boy from Bournemouth with the peaches and cream complexion and the English teeth to a tanned, muscled American hunk in a movie that garnered critical raves and a cult following. Christian was now getting more scripts to look at as he was clearly an actor who was committed to his roles.

  Most importantly, Christian was expanding the Balehead fan base. His fans had previously been mostly college or high school girls, but a role like Patrick Bateman invited Bret Easton Ellis fans and others who followed off-the-wall serial killer portrayals. It was the old Hollywood maxim at work again. A Hollywood star needed to attract both men and women—men who wanted to be like him and women who wanted to sleep with him.

  Thanks to the success of American Psycho in its limited release and on video, Lionsgate immediately green-lit two sequels, which were released in 2002. The Rules of Attraction starred James Van Der Beek as Patrick Bateman’s cousin, Sean. Desperate for Christian to make a cameo in his movie, Van Der Beek wrote a letter to Christian but he was unmoved. He didn’t want to revisit the part. The Rules of Attraction, like American Psycho, was at least based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel but odder still was Lionsgate’s second sequel project, which was released straight to video—American Psycho 2: All American Girl. Starring Mila Kunis (The Black Swan, That 70s Show) and William Shatner (Star Trek, of course!), this turkey was Lionsgate’s none-too-subtle move from artsy independent films to the studio that would produce the Saw franchise.

  American Psycho proved that Christian looked good as a killer, particularly in a tuxedo, so it was no surprise that Christian was invited to meet with Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond movies. Broccoli was looking ahead for the next James Bond after Pierce Brosnan’s contract expired. She intimated that the role of 007 would be Christian’s for the asking.

  The meeting was polite and cordial but Christian was not interested in being committed to a franchise that was very British. He thought that James Bond represented every despicable stereotype about England and British actors. Besides, he quipped: “I’ve already played a serial killer.”

  But Christian was still very keenly aware that an actor had to be competitive. The battle with DiCaprio for American Psycho taught Christian a lesson. He could not sit back and passively wait for roles to come to him. His father had coddled him so much that Christian sort of expected that roles would be offered to the “greatest actor in the world.” And Christian continued to compete for roles against his old nemesis Ethan Hawke. He lost a part in The Newton Boys when he was told he looked too English. Snow Falling on Cedars was also lost to Hawke. Then came Training Day.

  Christian was thrilled to announce that he was up for the lead in Training Day, the violent police drama directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington. Originally, word was that the part of Jake, the rookie cop, was supposed to go to Freddie Prinze Jr., who was looking for a gritty comeback role. But Christian auditioned for the part and the producers liked his look and his reading. A few days later, Christian was distraught to hear that they thought he looked too old for the part.

  “That,” I teased him, “is because you spent too much time on the tanning bed for American Psycho!”

  Christian was not amused. Worse was when he heard that the part ended up going to Ethan Hawke who was four years his senior! It was a bitter pill to swallow when Hawke earned his first Oscar nomination for his performance in Training Day.

  Unlike the career lag after Little Women, Christian had a lot of opportunities post-American Psycho. He signed on for a number of follow-up projects; 2000 and 2001 were going to be very busy for him. Adding to my day job, I wore a number of hats for Christian, including personal assistant. All calls and e-mails had to go through me, even while I was working my full-time job.r />
  First up was Shaft, Christian’s first big popcorn movie, a $50 million Paramount Pictures movie that he landed in the afterglow of the rave reviews he got from American Psycho. The lean years of indie films were over! To Christian’s delight, he would play an American and a bad guy, Walter Wade Jr., in a reboot of the popular 1970s Shaft movies, which had starred Richard Roundtree. This time, Samuel L. Jackson starred as the titular character, a tough-talking New York detective hot on the trail of a racist rich kid (Christian) who had killed a black man at a club. Directed by John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood), Shaft ended up a moderate summer 2000 box office success, grossing more than $70 million domestically.

  The production was not without its problems as Jackson had issues with director Singleton and the script. Jackson told the New York Daily News at the time that: “I told him point-blank that I refused to say that white man’s [screenwriter Richard Price] lines.”

  Critics were lukewarm on the movie. The Shaft of the 1970s was bold and blatant and defined the blaxploitation movie genre. Roger Ebert summed it up: “Too much of it is on automatic pilot, as it must be, to satisfy the fans of the original Shaft.”

  When he was single, Christian, concerned about being distracted or jarred out of character, barely tolerated set visits from family and friends. Though untrained, Christian’s method-like acting required focus and a prickly professionalism. He told a reporter just a year before he got married that he enjoyed staying in character. “I just actually find it enjoyable to do that. And it’s part of my pleasure of making films, in a way, that I can go away and pretend to be somebody else, to all these people who don’t know any different, you know? Which is why I dislike having family or friends visit the set.”

  But that was before Christian got married. After they were married on January 29, 2000, Sibi and Christian were inseparable, and she followed him on location everywhere. Shaft was shot in New York City, Reign of Fire in Ireland, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in Greece. And Equilibrium was shot in Germany. Sibi’s presence on location was constant and unique.

  After Shaft, Christian and Sibi packed up to go to the remote Greek island of Kefalonia for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. This was the highly anticipated follow-up project for director John Madden after his tremendously successful Shakespeare in Love, which had earned Oscars for both Gwyneth Paltrow and Dame Judi Dench.

  Based on the novel by Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a tragic love story set on Kefalonia during the Second World War when the island was occupied by Italian and German forces. I was looking forward to this project as I had been following the book since it was brought to me by my former English high school teacher, Jean McKay, back in Toronto as a possible project for Christian. Of course, David and I were hoping for Christian to snag the title role but by the time the book was optioned and a screenplay written, the juicy starring role went to Nicolas Cage. However, Christian wanted the morally corrupt (and more dramatically interesting) part of Mandras, the Greek fisherman.

  In typical Hollywood fashion, here was a big $60 million movie set in Greece without any Greek actors in the lead roles. Spaniard Penelope Cruz played Cage’s love interest, Pelagia, while Christian’s All the Little Animals costar, the very English John Hurt, played Dr. Iannis. Christian landed the role of Mandras.

  While shooting on Kefalonia in the summer of 2000, Christian and Sibi were overwhelmed by the heat. WENN (The World Entertainment News Network) reported that Christian was having a miserable time during the shoot. WENN noted that a friend of Christian’s said: “He hates the food and I get e-mails every day from him saying that he’s lost another 5 pounds because he can’t eat anything. He says the weather is too hot as well, he’s not enjoying it at all.”

  Of course, WENN was also the news outlet that reported that Christian had a private jet for his use during the Corelli shoot!

  Christian was furious at the report. He e-mailed me: “It makes me sound like a bitchy, faggot actor!” I had to laugh when I read his e-mail, as Christian often complained about any location that wasn’t Italy. He blamed his mother for the possible leak, thinking that she may have shared their correspondence to the press.

  The truth of the matter is that Kefalonia is such a remote island, it took a charter plane to get cast and crew to a major airport. I personally organized flights for Christian whenever he had work on a shoot. And Christian was also busy flying around Europe to promote the release of American Psycho in those countries.

  Christian was disappointed with two omissions in the final film. His character, Mandras, was supposed to swim with the dolphins but budget and timing constraints cut that scene. Also, Mandras attempts to rape Pelagia but that scene was cut, so Mandras oddly disappears halfway through the movie with no explanation.

  Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was an expensive bomb for Universal Pictures when it was released in August 2001, grossing just $25 million domestically. The critics laughed at the watered-down adaptation of the book and the casting choices.

  Perhaps the toughest criticism came from the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern, who wrote: “I wish I’d brought a pair of peas to the screening. Then I could have taken in the glorious scenery without the dumb dialogue, which is delivered in a jangle of accents that makes a mockery of ethnicity.”

  Alarmed at the bad reviews, Christian decided to skip the L.A. premiere, breaking with Hollywood tradition where even a poorly reviewed studio movie merited a glamorous red carpet event where the cast could express their solidarity, generate press coverage, and schmooze with filmmakers for their next project. Christian didn’t like the Hollywood game—particularly publicity and the red carpet walk where one had to spit out all the same answers to the same questions.

  The night of the premiere for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was memorable for a number of reasons. I had recently moved to an apartment in Marina del Rey, and since Christian had decided not to attend the premiere, he came over to meet my new dog, Dodger, the world’s largest dachshund, which I had adopted from a rescue in Canoga Park. As Christian settled on my couch, Dodger took one look at Christian, jumped up, and bit him right in the crotch. Dodger survived Christian’s wrath by being fast, but it definitely added to Christian’s unhappy mood for the evening.

  Touchstone Pictures’ Reign of Fire was another popcorn movie. Directed by Rob Bowman (best known for his work on the X-Files), this was Christian’s first role with the gruff, survivalist beard that would become a familiar sight in his later films.

  Shot in Ireland, Reign of Fire was supposed to be a modern dragon movie. Budgeted at $60 million, it was Dragonheart meets Dragonslayer meets Mad Max. In a construction site in London, hibernating dragons are accidentally awakened. The dragons lay waste to the earth and the surviving humans are holed up in little communities in a postapocalyptic existence. Christian stars as the leader of one English survival camp. A seventeen-year-old English actor named Scott Moutter played Christian’s adopted son, Jared. When an army of Americans show up—led by Matthew McConaughey biting a big cigar—the humans band together to kill the lone male dragon.

  When I first read the script, I had added my own flurry of sticky notes to give to Christian. I had done my IMDb research and warned him that no live-action dragon movie had ever done well at the box office, so I was wondering if the script could be changed to be more about pterodactyls in the vein of Jurassic Park.

  Christian took these concerns to Bowman. He said in an interview: “I had some concerns about the story but what was great is that Rob had the exact same concerns and promised that there were going to be changes. I did a complete 180 degree turn in the meeting. I went in there thinking: ‘No, probably not,’ and left thinking this is something exciting and different for me to do.”

  Christian’s costar Matthew McConaughey, was a big fan of Empire of the Sun. He told OK! Magazine in 2008 that he had whistled the theme from Empire of the Sun to his son, Levi, while he was still in the womb. McConaughey was thrilled to be d
oing the project, although in typical McConaughey style, Christian recalled that he kept asking Bowman for a nude scene.

  Shooting a special effects movie was a lot of fun for Christian. He told a journalist: “This was more like playing silly buggers in the playground than almost any movie I’ve ever done before.” But Dublin was not his favorite place to live. He complained about Dublin as much as he complained about Greece. “We stayed in a house right in the middle of Temple Bar. We had vomit and vodka bottles on the doorstep each morning and had to stick foam up against the windows if we wanted to sleep at night.”

  Science fiction fans are very fussy about story line—particularly believability. And one of the many problems of the critically-reviled Reign of Fire was that of dragon biology, since the movie’s key plot point was that there was only one lone male dragon that presumably flew around the world to mate with the females. With an improbable and unbelievable scenario and a movie that looked as if it were Waterworld in flames, Reign of Fire opened as the big summer movie for 2002 only to be shot down by the critics.

  Reign of Fire ended up as a box office disappointment, grossing just $43 million domestically, far short of its estimated $60 million production costs. However, the movie gave Christian his first opportunity to appear on an American talk show. When he appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, he bristled at doing the obligatory station identification, where the celebrity would say, “I’m Christian Bale and you’re watching The Late Late Show on CBS.” Kilborn decided to force the issue by asking Christian to do the station identification live on the air during a segment called “5 Questions for Christian Bale.” Christian wittily replied, “I’m Christian Bale and I’m sucking corporate cock right now.”

  Christian’s young costar, Scott Moutter, came to the Reign of Fire premiere with his family to size up the possibility of pursuing a Hollywood career. Interestingly enough, Christian passed on lunching with the Moutters, so David and I took them out for lunch instead. After all that David had been through in America, I was surprised when David bluntly told Moutter’s father not to move to Hollywood. “It’s too difficult and competitive,” David explained. “And your son will never get his childhood back again.” The Moutters ended up staying in England.