The versatile actor, Christian Bale, is a leading man of various genres. He started his acting career at just the age of 10 in 1984. But his breakthrough role came in 1987 when he starred in Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film Empire of the Sun. In fact, he was chosen among 4000 kids who auditioned for the role, which is no easy feat.
And a few years later, Bale became a household name in the Hollywood industry. But acting isn’t the only chop that the Dark Knight actor holds, he is even the master in singing and dancing.
The star led his way in this as a singing and dancing newspaper hawker in New York City. For the role, he needed to learn a special choreography, too. Bale always thought that a musical wasn’t for him until he realized that Newsies was the one after reading its script.
However, it didn’t stop there. The blissful exploration of dance and singing kept going throughout his career. And even he almost did this side of skillful performance in one superhero flick — definitely not The Dark Knight.
Taika Waititi Had a Dance Vision for Christian Bale in Thor 4
After being the most favorite Batman, Christian Bale joined the MCU in 2022 by playing comic book villain Gorr the God Butcher opposite Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder. In an interview with Total Film, Bale shared that he and director Taika Waititi had plans for a dance sequence in the film, which included elements inspired by singer-songwriter Kate Bush.
As he said, director Taika Waititi “wanted to do a whole dance, which [they] didn’t get to do, but [they] had all this sort of Kate Bush stuff that [they] worked at.”
Even though the dance idea didn’t come to fruition, they incorporated Kate Bush-inspired elements (art rock—marked by theatrical sensuality, textural experimentation, and allusive subject matter) into the project.
And that’s how Bale’s black and white villain was the best received MCU villain in test screenings of the film. Anyways, the Hollywood legend got a chance to show off his singing skills in 2022’s Amsterdam alongside one of the biggest pop stars ever.
Christian Bale is a Trained Dancer
Christian Bale trained in ballet as a child. But to pursue acting, he left his passion behind. As described earlier, a fresh-faced Bale appeared in the 1992’s musical comedy Newsies. He then appeared as Thomas Berger in 1993’s musical war film, Swing Kids.
Both these films had significant song and dance components. And for that, the future Caped Crusader underwent ten weeks of intensive training to unleash his singing and dancing chops.
