Christian Bale

***Christian Charles Philip Bale*** (January 30, 1974, Haverfordwest, Wales) is an English actor. Known for his versatility and physical transformations for his roles, he has been a leading man in films of several genres. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the highest-paid actors in 2014.

Born in Wales to English parents, Bale had his breakthrough role at age 13 in Steven Spielberg's 1987 war film Empire of the Sun. After more than a decade of performing in leading and supporting roles in films, he gained wider recognition for his portrayals of serial killer Patrick Bateman in the black comedy American Psycho (2000) and the titular role in the psychological thriller The Machinist (2004). In 2005, he played superhero Batman in Batman Begins and again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), garnering acclaim for his performance in the trilogy, which is one of the highest-grossing film franchises.

Bale continued in starring roles in a range of films outside his work as Batman, including the period drama The Prestige (2006), the action film Terminator Salvation (2009), the crime drama Public Enemies (2009), the epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and the superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). For his portrayal of boxer Dicky Eklund in the 2010 biographical film The Fighter, he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Further Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations came for his work in the black comedy American Hustle (2013) and the biographical dramedies The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). His performances as politician Dick Cheney in Vice and race car driver Ken Miles in the sports drama Ford v Ferrari (2019) earned him a second win and a fifth nomination respectively at the Golden Globe Awards.

Christian Charles Philip Bale was born on 30 January 1974 in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, to English parents—Jenny James, a circus performer, and David Bale, an entrepreneur and activist. Bale has remarked, "I was born in Wales but I'm not Welsh—I'm English." He has two elder sisters, Sharon and Louise, and a half-sister from his father's first marriage, Erin. One of his grandfathers was a comedian while the other was a stand-in for John Wayne. Bale and his family left Wales when he was two years old, and after living in Portugal and Oxfordshire, England, they settled in Bournemouth. As well as saying that the family had lived in 15 towns by the time he was 15, Bale described the frequent relocation as being driven by "necessity rather than choice" and acknowledged that it had a major influence on his career selection. He attended Bournemouth School, later saying he left school at age 16. Bale's parents divorced in 1991, and at age 17, he moved with his sister Louise and their father to Los Angeles.

Bale trained in ballet as a child. His first acting role came at eight years old in a commercial for the fabric softener Lenor. He also appeared in a Pac-Man cereal commercial. After his sister was cast in a West End musical, Bale considered taking up acting professionally. He said later he did not find acting appealing but pursued it at the request of those around him because he had no reason not to do so. After participating in school plays, Bale performed opposite Rowan Atkinson in the play The Nerd in the West End in 1984. He did not undergo any formal acting training.

After deciding to become an actor at age ten, Bale secured a minor role in the 1986 television film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. Its star, Amy Irving, who was married to director Steven Spielberg, subsequently recommended Bale for Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun. At age 13, Bale was chosen from over 4,000 actors to portray a British boy in a World War II Japanese internment camp. For the film, he spoke with an upper-class cadence without the help of a dialogue coach. The role propelled Bale to fame, and his work earned him acclaim and the inaugural Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Earlier in the same year, he starred in the fantasy film Mio in the Land of Faraway, based on the novel Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren. The fame from Empire of the Sun led to Bale being bullied in school and finding the pressures of working as an actor unbearable. He grew distrustful of the acting profession because of media attention but said that he felt obligated at a young age to continue to act for financial reasons. Around this time, actor and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh persuaded Bale to appear in his film Henry V in 1989, which drew him back into acting. The following year, Bale played Jim Hawkins opposite Charlton Heston as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, a television film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's book of the same name.

Bale starred in the 1992 Disney musical film Newsies, which was unsuccessful both at the box office and with critics. Rebecca Milzoff of Vulture revisited the film in 2012 and found the cracks in Bale's voice during his performance of the song "Santa Fe" charming and apt even though he was not a great singer. In 1993, he appeared in Swing Kids, a film about teenagers who secretly listen to forbidden jazz during the rise of Nazi Germany. In Gillian Armstrong's 1994 film Little Women, Bale played Theodore "Laurie" Laurence following a recommendation from Winona Ryder, who starred as Jo March. The film achieved critical and commercial success. Of Bale's performance, Ryder said he captured the complex nature of the role. He next voiced Thomas, a young compatriot of Captain John Smith, in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, which attracted a mixed critical reception. Bale played a small part in the 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady, based on the Henry James novel of the same name, and appeared in the 1998 musical film Velvet Goldmine, set in the 1970s during the glam rock era. In 1999, he was part of an ensemble cast, which included Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer, portraying Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name.

Bale played Patrick Bateman, an investment banker and serial killer, in American Psycho, a film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name, directed by Mary Harron. While Harron had chosen Bale for the part, the film's production and distribution company, Lionsgate, originally disagreed and hired Leonardo DiCaprio to play Bateman with Oliver Stone to direct. Bale and Harron were brought back after DiCaprio and Stone had left the project. Bale exercised and tanned himself for months to achieve Bateman's chiseled physique and had his teeth capped to assimilate to the character's narcissistic nature. American Psycho premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Harron said critic Roger Ebert named it the most hated film at the event. Of Bale's work, Ebert wrote he "is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor." The film was released in April 2000, becoming a commercial and critical success and later developing a cult following; the role established Bale as a leading man.

Bale starred as the insomnia-ridden, emotionally dysfunctional title character in the psychological thriller The Machinist. To prepare for the role, he initially only smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey. His diet later expanded to include black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna per day. Bale lost 63 pounds (29 kg), weighing 121 pounds (55 kg) to play the character, who was written in the script as "a walking skeleton". His weight loss prompted comparisons with Robert De Niro's weight gain in preparation to play Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. Describing his transformation as mentally calming, Bale claimed he had stopped working for a while because he did not come upon scripts that piqued his interest and that the film's script drew him to lose weight for the part. The Machinist was released in October 2004; it performed poorly at the box office. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel regarded it as one of the best films of the year, and Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that Bale's "haunted, aggressive and finally wrenching performance" gave it a "strong anchor".

Bale portrayed American billionaire Bruce Wayne and his superhero alias Batman in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, a reboot of the Batman film series. Nolan cast Bale, who was still fairly unknown at the time, because Bale had "exactly the balance of darkness and light" Nolan sought. For the part, Bale regained the weight he lost for The Machinist and built muscle, weighing 220 pounds (100 kg). He trained in weapons, Wing Chun Kung Fu and the Keysi Fighting Method. Acknowledging the story's peculiar circumstances involving a character "who thinks he can run around in a batsuit in the middle of the night", Bale said he and Nolan had deliberately approached it with "as realistic a motivation as possible", referencing Wayne's parents' murder. Bale voiced Wayne and Batman differently. He employed gravelly tone qualities for Batman, which Nolan believed reinforced the character's visual appearance. Batman Begins was released in the US in June 2005. Tim Grierson and Will Leitch of Vulture complimented Bale's "sensitive, intelligent portrayal of a spoiled, wayward Bruce who finally grows up (and fights crime)." The performance earned Bale the MTV Movie Award for Best Hero.

In the same year, Bale voiced the titular Howl, a wizard, in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, a Japanese animated film adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's children's novel of the same name. He committed himself to voice the role after watching Miyazaki's animated film Spirited Away. Later that year, he starred as a US war veteran who deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in the David Ayer-helmed crime drama Harsh Times, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He portrayed colonist John Rolfe in The New World, a historical drama film inspired by the stories of Pocahontas, directed by Terrence Malick. The film was released on 25 December 2005. The following year saw the premiere of Rescue Dawn, by German filmmaker Werner Herzog, in which Bale portrayed US fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, who fights for his life after being shot down while on a mission during the Vietnam War. After the two worked together, Herzog stated that he had considered Bale to be among his generation's greatest talents long before he played Batman. The Austin Chronicle's Marjorie Baumgarten viewed Bale's work as a continuance of his "masterful command of yet another American personality type."

In February 2008, Warner Bros. announced that Bale would star as rebellion leader John Connor in the post-apocalyptic action film Terminator Salvation, directed by McG, who cited Bale as "the most credible actor of his generation". In February 2009, an audio recording of a tirade on the film's set in July 2008 involving Bale was released. It captured him directing profanities at the film's cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, who walked onto the set during the filming of a scene acted by Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard, and culminated in Bale threatening to quit the film if Hurlbut was not fired. Several colleagues in the film industry defended Bale, attributing the incident to his dedication to acting. Bale publicly apologised in February 2009, calling the outburst "inexcusable" and his behaviour "way out of order" and affirming to have made amends with Hurlbut. Terminator Salvation was released in May 2009 to tepid reviews. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered Bale's work to be "surprisingly one-dimensional", while The Age's Jake Wilson wrote he gave one of his least compelling performances. Bale later admitted he knew during production that the film would not revitalise the Terminator franchise as he had wished. He asserted he would not work with McG again.

Bale played Batman again under Christopher Nolan's direction in the sequel The Dark Knight Rises, released in July 2012. He described Batman in the film as a remorseful recluse in poor mental and physical health, who has surrendered following the events of The Dark Knight. Following the shooting at a midnight showing of the film in Aurora, Colorado, Bale and his wife visited survivors, doctors and first responders at The Medical Center of Aurora as well as a memorial to victims. The Dark Knight Rises was the 11th film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide, surpassing The Dark Knight. Nolan's Batman film series, dubbed the Dark Knight trilogy, is one of the highest-grossing film franchises. It is also regarded as one of the best comic book film franchises. Bale's performance in the three films garnered universal acclaim, with The Guardian, NME and a poll conducted by the Radio Times ranking it as the best portrayal of Batman on film. Bale later revealed his dissatisfaction with his work throughout the trilogy, saying he "didn't quite nail" his part and that he "didn't quite manage" what he had hoped he would as Batman.