The unspeakable brilliance of Hollywood actor Christian Bale lies in the fact that he can not only perfectly mold into any role that he takes on to play but also utterly transform them into something impossibly beautiful and hypnotic. Inimitable is the word that then comes to mind for every artistic Bale performance. And the same has been witnessed on every occasion when the 48-year-old actor simply needs to appear on the screen and the act that follows then manages to streamline one’s complete attention on him.
The very same Christian Bale who has given the world a psychopath and a superhero, among a multitude of other great personifications, now returns to deliver a gothic whodunnit thriller in an ambiguously good Scott Cooper film, The Pale Blue Eye.
Christian Bale is a ‘Sloth’: Almost Declined Scott Cooper Film
When Scott Cooper had approached Prestige actor, Christian Bale, with the proposition of Out of the Furnace, the latter solemnly refused to accept the role which the director had uniquely tailored for this particular actor. With Bale saying no, Cooper understandably claims –
“That was tough… I went from being an actor who was never offered anything to becoming a director who was offered everything after Crazy Heart. So to have a film that I really wanted to make with a particular actor who wasn’t ready to make it at the time, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to go next.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the director further revealed:
“Chrisitan is a little bit like Jeff Bridges, who was in my first film [Crazy Heart]. They find every reason not to go to work […] I write with actors in mind, so I wrote CrazyHeart for Jeff Bridges, and it took Jeff a year to even read it. So I was testing my luck and tempting fate when I wrote Out of the Furnace for Christian…”
However, Christian Bale, the protagonist of Scott Cooper’s recent films, doesn’t need to defend his side of the argument, as the director himself claims that Bale was a young father at the time and wanted to spend more time with his family than on the sets of a film. Now, after almost a decade of their partnership-turned-friendship, Bale proves Cooper’s words true as the actor reveals – “Scott’s a cheetah, and I’m a sloth” – pertaining to each one’s devotion to their specific art.
The Tailored Friendship of Christian Bale & Scott Cooper
In an in-depth profile-like interview with the actor and director duo, Christian Bale and Scott Cooper, The Hollywood Reporter makes out a kind of friendship that rivals the level of trust and love that is displayed among partners or close acquaintances who have known each other for decades. However, the relationship between Bale and Cooper was founded in a partnership, in the beginning. The pair were not friends or even acquaintances in the sprawling landscape of thousands of aspiring actors, directors, and performers in Hollywood, but it was Cooper’s success with Crazy Hearts that set him one step above the rest.
Crazy Hearts, as the director now recalls to THR, was tailored uniquely for Jeff Bridges and none other could have stepped into the role of Bad Blake and done it justice. And the part did go on to win The Big Lebowski actor an Oscar. The success of the 2009 film was quickly followed by more ambition mixed with enthusiasm that pushed Cooper to script a role uniquely crafted for Christian Bale. The film, Out of the Furnace, went on to mark the beginning of an epic trilogy and a partnership that has now led to the veritable finale, the gothic murder mystery.
After Out of the Furnace, Hostiles, and The Pale Blue Eye, Christian Bale has aptly claimed the pair’s work as the “Ethics of Revenge” trilogy.
The Pale Blue Eye is now available for streaming on Netflix.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
