Christian Bale starred as Bruce Wayne a.k.a Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy. The actor was known for his roles in American Psycho and The Machinist till then and reportedly underwent a physical transformation for the role of Wayne. He was propelled to a worldwide stardom with his role as Batman.
Bale’s performance as Batman is often considered to be one of the best portrayals of the Cape Crusader ever on film. After Michael Keaton, his performance is widely regarded as the greatest. While Christian Bale has a lot of love for his The Dark Knight films, he reportedly had an issue with the cape being part of the Batsuit as it was not practical.
Christian Bale Beat Many Prominent Actors To Play Batman
Director Christopher Nolan was hired to direct a Batman reboot after he gave hits such as Memento and Insomnia. The director was a relative newcomer at the time but attempted to revamp the campy image Batman had received due to the Joel Schumacher films. He reportedly wanted to keep the films grounded and close to reality.
Christian Bale became almost synonymous with Batman after playing the legendary character in The Dark Knight trilogy. The actor was a relatively unknown actor when he was cast as he had done roles as a child actor and had gained some fame from American Psycho. He had to transform from his extremely thin appearance from The Machinist to suit the bulked-up physicality of Batman in six weeks.
Nolan reportedly considered a bunch of actors who would become prominent stars for the role of Bruce Wayne. Apart from Christian Bale, actors such as Henry Cavill, Eoin Bailey, Jake Gyllenhaal, Billy Crudup, and more were considered for the role. The director also thought of Heath Ledger, but the actor went on to play the Joker in the second film.
Christopher Nolan reportedly auditioned Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy, and Eoin Bailey for the role. The screentest saw the three don the Batsuit, which was the version worn by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever. Though Murphy was not selected for the role, he would portray Dr. Jonathan Crane in the film and would continue to collaborate with Nolan for twenty years.
Christian Bale Hated The Cape In His Batsuit
Christian Bale was selected for the role of Bruce Wayne after beating out actors such as Cillian Murphy and Josh Hartnett. The actor was confirmed to appear in the role in 2003 and he began training for the role immediately after he finished the production of The Machinist. The actor was described by Christopher Nolan as the perfect blend of light and dark.
In a statement to Superhero Hype, Nolan spoke about his leading man,
“What I see in Christian is the ultimate embodiment of Bruce Wayne. He has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we were looking for.”
While Christopher Nolan updated Christian Bale’s Batsuit from the impractical and limiting suits of previous iterations, Bale reportedly had issues with one thing in the suit. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Christian Bale mentioned that he did not find the presence of the cape to be in any way useful for the vigilante superhero.
Bale mentioned that he hated the idea of a cape so much that he was sure the person who came up with the idea of a cape for a superhero did not know anything. He said,
“Let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, wasn’t really onto anything good. The number of times I’m treading on that damn thing … or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It’s really not practical [for a superhero]. I wouldn’t do it myself. I’m wearing a cape every damn day. … I personally wouldn’t choose to do that.”
Christopher Nolan reportedly wanted the cape to look flowy like a comic book. The designers reportedly used a process that was used by the British Ministry of Defence to reduce night-vision detection. While Christian Bale might not have felt at ease while fighting with a cape, it did look really cool on screen.
