With Rescue Dawn winding up filming in November 2005, Christian just had enough time to pack on a few pounds and begin rehearsing for his next project, The Prestige. The movie would reunite him with Batman director Christopher Nolan. With a budget of $40 million—the total of Christian’s last three movies combined—the movie was based on the novel by Christopher Priest. It follows a rivalry between two magicians—Christian and Hugh Jackman—which intensifies when one of them performs the ultimate illusion.
Yet when he was first given the script by Nolan during the filming of Batman, he didn’t bother even reading it since Nolan was already auditioning other actors for the part. He revealed in an interview: “I didn’t actually read it during Batman. I had spoken with Chris about it before we started shooting Batman but just a casual conversation. Nothing to do with me doing it, whatsoever. He was talking to other actors at the time. But then we worked very well. I read The Prestige again after I finished Batman and I wasn’t sure if Chris just wanted to keep me as Bruce Wayne in his eyes and that was it and he wouldn’t want to work on anything else. So I contacted him and raised that question. I really liked the character of Borden and just told him: ‘Hey, look, this would be great, I could really do this very well.’ And he believed me, so we got crackin’.”
Christian threw himself in the role, delighted to be working with Nolan again but also eager to learn some magic tricks from pros Ricky Jay and Michael Weber. He was especially excited to learn because of his grandfather’s interest in magic.
Christian told a reporter: “My grandfather was a magician. I never saw him perform or anything but he always remembers the Magic Circle in London. By the time I kind of knew that, he had a few old tricks in a chest up in the attic and he would pull it down now and then but most of them were busted so he’d describe how they were done. But certainly, he very much enjoyed that.”
But Christian admitted his own attempts at magic were not great and often he would fail in front of dozens of extras during a scene. He added: “There were an awful lot of disastrous attempts at magic that ended very badly but to be honest those were just as enjoyable as when you succeeded and nailed it. It’s kind of nice to be making a fool of yourself in front of hundreds of extras who are all there snickering when you get it wrong.”
Despite Christian’s terrible attempts to perform tricks, the magic formula of Nolan and Christian was a winner again with a well-reviewed movie grossing almost $100 million.
Once again the pair had made a profitable movie, making the studios sit up and take note, especially Warner Bros., who agreed to increase the budget on the upcoming Dark Knight. Batman Begins had cost $150 million to make but now the studio was happy to let Nolan have another $35 million, pushing the budget on the sequel up to $185 million. While that seems an extraordinary amount, most blockbuster movies cost in the region of $200 to $300 million.
But before Christian could don the Batsuit once more he had two more movie projects to complete. The first one was a small part in the indie film I’m Not There. With a budget of just $730,000, Todd Haynes, who had directed Christian in Velvet Goldmine, filmed the movie in less than a month with such stars as Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian, and his future Dark Knight costar Heath Ledger, all embodying different aspects of musician Bob Dylan’s life.
For Christian it meant he could retain his indie cred while still pumping out the big blockbusters, although his next movie, 3:10 to Yuma, fell somewhere in between.
“Here’s an idea. Take two of Hollywood’s angriest actors. Get them good and mad at each other. Then drop them in the most violent time of American history. What could possibly go wrong?”
—USA Network promo for 3:10 to Yuma
A remake of the 1957 movie of the same name, the film sees Christian in the role of Dan Evans, a small-time rancher who agrees to hold captured outlaw Ben Wades, who’s awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. Wade is played by former Hollywood bad boy Russell Crowe, and the two got along great while filming in the desert of New Mexico.
Crowe told a reporter: “Right from the first time we did a reading I could see that he had a sense of humor and was very balanced about what the job was all that sort of stuff. Once you’ve worn that cape it must be hard keeping your feet on the ground! You can tell there’s a lot of base jealously from me about the fact he gets to wear the cape! But we found it really easy to get on. It’s really nice to have a repartee when you’re trying to do complicated things in rough conditions. It’s also a good thing being able to simply finish a day’s work and being able to have a regular conversation with a bloke over a beer without it being some big to do and breaking some sort of contemporary taboo like: ‘We don’t do that in Los Angeles.’”
Christian also revealed that people thought he was mad to work with Crowe, who once had a reputation as a hard-drinking troublemaker. In 1999, Crowe was involved in a scuffle at the Plantation Hotel in Coffs Harbour, Australia, that was caught on security camera. Two men were later acquitted of using the video in an attempt to blackmail him.
In 2002 Crowe got into an argument with TV producer Malcolm Gerrie when part of his appearance at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards was cut to fit the BBC’s tape-delayed broadcast. The Aussie actor let rip with a barrage of four-letter words. Though he later apologized, saying: “What I said to him may have been a little more passionate, now in the cold light of day, than I would have liked it to have been.”
And in June 2005, Crowe was arrested and charged with second degree assault by New York City Police after he threw a telephone at the Mercer Hotel employee who refused to help him place a phone call when the system did not work from his room. After being charged with fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon, the telephone, Crowe was sentenced to conditional release and later paid $100,000 to settle a civil lawsuit out of court with the employee, who received treatment for facial lacerations. Crowe later said: “This was possibly the most shameful incident that I’ve gotten myself in and I’ve done some pretty dumb things in my life.”
So it was easy to see why those around Christian were concerned that he was going to be working with Crowe.
Christian told a reporter: “We had never met before. Whenever people asked me what I was doing next and I said that I was going to be working with Russell, they would kind of look at me and go: ‘Oh right, you’re going to be in for a tough ride with him.’ You find an awful lot and I don’t mean to talk out of school but a lot of actors sort of complain and wince and do everything to avoid actually getting on with the work, so it’s nice when you’re working with someone like Russell when you can just get to the point and you can have blunt conversations about the scenes and it just makes it easy. Obviously he doesn’t have to be told what to do because he’s a bloody good actor and it’s a pleasure to work with someone as good as that.”
Crowe has cleaned up his act and stayed out of trouble since the phone-throwing incident, but soon Hollywood—and the rest of the world—would be looking on stunned as his costar Christian would be the one hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
[14]
The Curse of Batman—
It’s No Joker
“You can’t help but find that violence is endlessly fascinating—and I mean true violence, not action-movie violence, just because it is used as the answer to so many problems. We’re all taught as kids not to be violent but you can’t help but also see that violence is what works very often. Bullies thrive.”
—Christian Bale, New York Magazine 2006
“The Dark Knight Is Cursed!”
That was the headline that screamed out around the world after a series of mishaps, threats, and deaths struck the cast and crew of the new Batman movie. Christian had once again got his physique into shape and eagerly hit the set along with Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Aaron Eckhart.
Filming had begun on the highly anticipated The Dark Knight in April 2
007, but almost immediately things began to go wrong. A series of catastrophes would hit the $185 million film. Before the movie was even released, two people would be dead and Christian would be arrested for attacking his own mother and sister in a hotel room, while just a month after The Dark Knight hit movie screens another actor would be involved in a near fatal car crash.
The first unfortunate accident happened in September 2007 when a special effects technician was killed while filming a stunt. Conway Wickliffe was operating a camera from the backseat of a Nissan 4x4 when the vehicle failed to negotiate a turn while driving alongside a stunt car at 20 mph.
The crew was setting up a test run for a scene where the Batmobile is blown up, and an old American police car, similar in size and weight, was being used as the unmanned “rocket car,” which was being fired off a ramp by a black powder cannon while pyrotechnic explosions inside the car were set off. Wickliffe was in the backseat leaning out of the window and facing backwards to capture the shot when the accident happened. The Nissan struck a tree and Wickliffe suffered severe injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene at the site at Longcross, near Chertsey in Surrey, U.K., where the stunt filming was taking place.
The cast and crew were devastated by the accident and the film’s closing credits carried a dedication to the cameraman. But that wasn’t the only shocking death to hit the movie.
Actor Heath Ledger was found dead of a drug overdose in his New York apartment on January 22, 2008—just two months after filming ended.
The hugely talented Ledger played The Joker in The Dark Knight—a role originally brought to life with full comic force by the legendary Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. When Ledger was first cast in the role, Hollywood was happily buzzing with the news that the critically acclaimed actor, who had earned great reviews and an Oscar nomination for his role as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, would face off against Christian.
Warner Bros. President of Production proclaimed: “We can’t wait to see two such formidable actors as Christian and Heath face off with each other as Batman and The Joker.”
And as filming got under way, there were whispers on the set of exactly how formidable Ledger was. Unlike Nicholson’s previous outing, Heath made The Joker a darker and more clearly disturbed character. Before the movie had even finished, people were talking Oscar nomination for Ledger and in one interview Christian told a reporter that his costar had done “one hell of a job,” as The Joker.
So it was a huge surprise, after production had wrapped, when the news broke that Ledger, just 28, had been found lying dead next to his bed surrounded by bottles of pills. He reportedly had six types of drugs prescribed in his name at his home—mainly generic versions of anti-anxiety medications. Two types of sleeping aids were also found next to his body.
He was found facedown at the foot of his bed by his masseuse, Diane Lee Wolozin, who tried to wake him for an appointment. As she failed to get a response she used Ledger’s phone to call Mary Kate Olsen, telling the actress: “Heath’s unconscious, I don’t know what to do,” before screaming: “I think he’s dead!” Both Olsen and Wolozin called 911 and Wolozin tried to resuscitate Ledger until paramedics arrived at 3:33 pm. However, nothing could be done and the actor was pronounced dead in his apartment at 3:36 pm.
The world mourned the loss of a great movie star as news of his untimely passing hit every newspaper, blog, radio, and TV show around the world. Yet his Dark Knight costar Christian refused to watch any coverage of Ledger’s death.
Christian explained: “I paid no attention to it. I knew him, I knew the family and why the hell would I sit there listening to idiots who don’t know anything at all? I literally didn’t read or watch anything after he died. If I happened to be watching anything that came on, I switched over straight away. It’s incredible the way the voyeuristic outlook is accepted as news.”
But Christian and the rest of the cast and crew of The Dark Knight were in shock. No one had expected anything like that to happen to Ledger, who had seemed happy and stable and enjoying life as a dad to Matilda Rose, his daughter with ex-fiancée and former Brokeback Mountain costar Michelle Williams.
And when the coroner released his final report, proving Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, his family and friends were still struggling to cope with their loss. Ledger’s father, Kim, said: “It’s a pretty sad time, we’re finding it difficult to cope.” While Michelle Williams released a statement that simply said: “My heart is broken.”
Just a few months later, Ledger became the second actor in history to win an Academy Award posthumously. Ledger’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar was also a rare exception to the rule that Academy voters overlook action-hero movies.
But Ledger’s compelling performance, together with worldwide interest in one of his final films, helped power The Dark Knight to a global box office gross of more than $1 billion, which made Academy members sit up and take notice. Eyebrows were raised at Warner Bros.’ poster campaign, which featured a deranged Ledger as The Joker, looking corpselike in whiteface and smeared makeup, with the tagline “Why so serious?”
Accepting the Oscar on behalf of his son, Kim said: “This award tonight validated Heath’s quiet determination to be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, in an industry that he so loved.”
While all of Ledger’s family flew in from Sydney for the Oscars, one person noticeably absent was Christian, who also did not attend Ledger’s funeral.
He did not attend the ceremony although he told a reporter: “Heath winning Best Supporting Actor was fantastic. He was a fantastic guy and we had a lot of fun on set. Heath was infectious; his death makes me angry because I know our friendship would have blossomed had he not died.”
He went on to tell Details magazine, “He was incredibly intense in his performance but incredibly mellow and laid back. Certainly there was this great anarchistic streak to it, just getting dirtier than anybody’s envisioned The Joker before. The film was something I wanted to share with him and expected to do so. And I can’t do anything else now but hope that it will be an absolutely appropriate celebration of his work.”
But while Christian was praising his Dark Knight costar, a pal was telling other reporters that Christian was himself feeling especially cursed. According to the Famous Scandal blog, a pal claimed: “Christian’s been more than gallant in praising Heath while promoting the film but privately he’s telling close friends that the film had turned into more of a wake for Ledger than a career building blockbuster for him. Christian believes he gave the best performance of his life in Dark Knight—but no one’s going to notice!”
That sentiment appeared to be true as Christian received no nominations at all for playing Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, while Ledger scooped up a number of trophies during the awards season. In addition to the Oscar he also won a Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screens Actors Guild, and a slew of American and Australian critics’ awards. And movie actors, directors, and producers all greeted each win with standing ovations.
While praise for Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker was unanimous and global, Christian’s performance as Batman was being debated by the Bat-fans. Screenrant wrote, “A civil war has brewed amongst fans on whether Bale’s husky voice work is good or bad since he first appeared as the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins.”
A YouTube spoof of the Batman/Joker interrogation scene has attracted over 12.4 million views, and helped to popularize that Christian sounded as if he had “throat cancer.” Christian’s voice for Batman was, some fans complained, incomprehensible.
Voice actor Kevin Conroy has portrayed the Dark Knight longer than anyone else; be it animated series, film, or video games. He is considered by many fans to be the true voice of Batman.
Conroy commented on Christian’s gravelly ‘throat cancer’ Batman voice at the 2010 C2E2 convention in Chicago. “He just got steered wrong. Obviously, someone should have stopped him and said, ‘You sound ridiculous!’”
<
br /> The fans erupted in cheers.
“I thought Christian was excellent as Bruce Wayne, but I didn’t understand his choices (with his portrayal of Batman). I thought it was over the top and distracted from his scenes as Batman.”
Before Ryan Reynolds landed the lead as Green Lantern, Bradley Cooper had been up for the role but confessed that he blew his audition by imitating Christian’s growl. Said Cooper, “The trouble was that when I auditioned, it being a superhero movie, I couldn’t help but do my Christian Bale Batman voice. I don’t know why. Needless to say I didn’t get the job.”
With all the accolades being heaped on Ledger, it is perhaps easy to see why Christian would not be in the best of moods as the movie readied to debut. The movie was released on July 14, 2008, in the U.S., while the London premiere was scheduled to follow a week later.
Christian prepared to return to his native England a conquering hero—the young boy who had once been bullied at school for being in a Steven Spielberg movie was now back in the U.K. as one of the biggest A-list stars on the planet. The now-confident star had his face splashed all over the front of Britain’s biggest tabloid newspapers the day after the London premiere, but it wasn’t to promote the movie.
Instead the headlines blared:
BATMAN ON BAIL:
SUPERHERO STAR ARRESTED!
KAPOW COPS NAB BATMAN
BATMAN STAR BALE QUESTIONED BY POLICE
OVER ASSAULT CLAIM
Christian had been arrested for allegedly attacking his own mum and sister. He spent four hours being grilled by police over the family bust-up at the five-star Dorchester Hotel in central London. He had his fingerprints, mugshot, and DNA taken before being released on bail without charge although he had to return to the police station in September to find out his fate.
Police ended up allowing Christian to attend the glittering London premiere for The Dark Knight though, just hours after mum Jenny and sister Sharon accused him of assault. Jenny, sixty-three, claimed she was pushed during the row in the actor’s suite at the hotel. Jenny and Sharon reported the alleged assault the morning after it happened, which left police with the dilemma of whether or not to arrest Bale before the premiere that night.
Christian Bale Page 23