Christian Bale’s portrayal of the iconic Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy is often regarded as one of the best portrayals of the character. Collaborating with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan, the duo created a grounded and serious version of Batman that would heavily influence the tone of future depictions.
Christian Bale has mentioned in many interviews that he was obsessed with playing the character even before he was cast. In fact, while Nolan was looking at other actors for the role, Bale would not let it happen.
How Christian Bale And Christopher Nolan Crafted The Iconic Bruce Wayne?
Before Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale redefined the superhero genre with the Dark Knight trilogy, the last Batman portrayal was Joel Schumacher’s extremely campy and ridiculed Batman and Robin. After the latter film bombed at the box office, there were many proposals for a reboot of the franchise. At some point, Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky was also in talks for a Batman film. However, WB chose to go with Christopher Nolan’s pitch, with whom they had just collaborated in Insomnia.
Christopher Nolan envisioned a more realistic and grounded Batman, taking a darker approach to the character in Batman Begins. He wanted to explore the origins of Brice Wayne, which all previous adaptations had just alluded to. He collaborated with screenwriter David S Goyer for the script, which took inspiration from Richard Donner’s Superman.
Christian Bale was interested in the role since Aronofsky’s involvement. Nolan met the American Psycho actor in the early stages of development and while the director loved Bale, he also tried out different actors for the caped crusader. Actors like Cillian Murphy and Josh Hartnett auditioned for the role. But the role ultimately went to the director’s initial choice, Christian Bale.
Talking about Bale, Nolan mentioned, “He has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we were looking for.” Apparently, the actor changed his voice during his audition to give a more gruff tone to Batman, contrasting it with that of Bruce Wayne.
Christian Bale Was Obsessed With Playing Batman
Christian Bale is an intense actor. Right before he played the iconic Batman, he starred in the psychological thriller The Machinist where he famously lost 62 pounds to give the character the right look. He immediately gained back the weight for Batman Begins. He did it again for playing former Vice President Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s Vice, with Bale gaining 40 pounds for the role.
The actor was interested in the role after he read through a few graphic novels, realizing the depths of the character. Talking to Black Film about the character,
“[I] realized that he was a really great character, a dark severe character, unlike anything that I had realized he can be before. So that’s when I first thought to myself I really want to play this character.”
He also mentioned that Nolan’s involvement in the film made him even more excited for it and he was not willing to let go of the character. He said,
“By the time I actually came to be cast I kind of gotten so obsessed about it that I kind of viewed it as it being mine already. It would’ve been more like…if they had told me like ‘No it’s not yours’. I would’ve been like ‘No way that’s not working out, that’s not going to happen.’”
The effort seems to have paid off as the franchise grossed over $2.4 billion at the global box office and is regarded as some of the greatest films ever.
Source: Black Film
