Speaker 1: You're listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards editor Chris Tappy. Have you been You've been
Speaker 1: busy since to tell you right, Yeah, that time of year,
Speaker 1: you know, you've been busy. You've been watching a lot
Speaker 1: of films because I've watched absolutely not I have. I
Speaker 1: watched the Female Ghostbusters, but the first like Tenderness, and
Speaker 1: then kids that like the rest of it. I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. Did they like it? The restaurant, Just
Speaker 1: people watching lots of documentaries about Dick Cheney and trying
Speaker 1: not to think about him since I was just playing
Speaker 1: him last night, and remember to about ourselves. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys good with the fires, you know, we had to
Speaker 1: get out, We have to leave our place. But the
Speaker 1: light was beautiful when I got on my roof and
Speaker 1: got to a bunch of photographs because it was incredible.
Speaker 1: It looked like more to or man like that some
Speaker 1: of the videos I say more more just the shape
Speaker 1: of the land and all that on fire. It's just like, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Mussa is going to be there today, isn't he Massa? Oh?
Speaker 1: Really I like him being there because he just either
Speaker 1: either he says nothing, which is right, and in front
Speaker 1: of his guilt he actually talks. Oh he does maybe
Speaker 1: maybe when it's weird on he's on the topic exactly.
Speaker 1: But the most famous scenes David that he did David
Speaker 1: or Russell film and they were going through the edit
Speaker 1: at the end and everything, and he was showing Mussa
Speaker 1: and Mussa didn't say anything, and David tells us to everybody,
Speaker 1: so I'm not talking at school bes He said to Mussa,
Speaker 1: what do you think he mus haven't said anything? Muss
Speaker 1: Mussa when if Mussa or speak Musson or like he's superb.
Speaker 1: He's one of these such a right eyes. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be talking to him soon. Actually, you get the shot right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the first shot of you in the movie I think
Speaker 1: is amazing, Like calcification of hatred is what's going on,
Speaker 1: and that would be a hero shot normally the framing,
Speaker 1: but it's fascinating the way that's kind of turned on
Speaker 1: its ear and the so yeah, well that's what's nice
Speaker 1: in it about the film, right, it's the lack of
Speaker 1: I mean, look, please don't talk to me about knowledge
Speaker 1: of film. You know, I have virtually none. People tell
Speaker 1: me and you can. I'm sure you know the Searches. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people tell me, oh, this film reminds me of the Searches.
Speaker 1: I've never seen the Searches. People can't believe why I
Speaker 1: haven't seen I've never seen the sound of music. I've
Speaker 1: never seen the wizard sound different things? What you mean
Speaker 1: it was? He had never seen the sound of music.
Speaker 1: Somebody alwaysked him way late in life, like what movie
Speaker 1: have you not seen that? People would be surprised and
Speaker 1: it was the sound of music. Yeah, but that was
Speaker 1: his job. It's not my job to watch everything, you know. True,
Speaker 1: I think it directed jobs. I think more they have
Speaker 1: to probably someone like Hurts would disagree with me, but
Speaker 1: but but more likely they have to know the conversation
Speaker 1: of the film right and respond and shooting with what
Speaker 1: I do. I don't feel like you need to know.
Speaker 1: That's good if you don't have to do it at all,
Speaker 1: go easier. Any I get told hostiles and most peoples
Speaker 1: of the people of the Searchers, which I hear is
Speaker 1: a good thing. That is a good. That is a good.
Speaker 1: That's a tough one to be a touchdown, but it's
Speaker 1: a good one. Here you go, Well, here we go,
Speaker 1: we're rolling. Okay, we have Christian Bale here today, star
Speaker 1: of Hostiles. Um I love this film, love this genre.
Speaker 1: You've worked in the genre a couple of times now
Speaker 1: actually with actually had been faster here last year, your
Speaker 1: co star in this and in three ten. And not
Speaker 1: to dive in on a craft question immediately, but I
Speaker 1: thought I love the way he put the notion of
Speaker 1: what acting is. He said, I'm not an artist, I'm
Speaker 1: a builder, which I really liked because it kind of
Speaker 1: demystifies it in some way. It translates it to a trade,
Speaker 1: which I kind of dig I guess, And I'm just
Speaker 1: curious your thoughts on those notes that um my feeling is, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't really know what it is, and I'm quite
Speaker 1: happy doing that. You know, I don't really know why
Speaker 1: I like doing it. I know the one thing I
Speaker 1: think that is very important in life and I want
Speaker 1: my kids to find is an obsession with something, hopefully
Speaker 1: a healthy obsession. I know I'm obsessed with it because
Speaker 1: I love it and I hate it as well, but
Speaker 1: I keep going back to it, and um uh, there's
Speaker 1: something about it that really intrigues me. As we were saying,
Speaker 1: just now it's got nothing for me to do with
Speaker 1: love of film. I do love film, but that's not
Speaker 1: why I do it. It's exploration of characters. I've got
Speaker 1: no idea, Like in my head, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to act. Really. I know how to play certain characters
Speaker 1: and that's it. But you know these actors who can
Speaker 1: come in and just sort of play one character in
Speaker 1: a different I have no idea how they do that
Speaker 1: at all. Maybe that takes some training which I lack
Speaker 1: and I've never had, um at all. Um. So that's
Speaker 1: how I look at it. I just look at it
Speaker 1: as I'm someone who studies one person in great depth
Speaker 1: and that's it. Um. People decide, you know what what
Speaker 1: to call that? Yeah, maybe I'm more of like a journalist.
Speaker 1: You investigate, and I like sometense you call them me
Speaker 1: an investigator. That feels important. Yeah. Well, that having been said,
Speaker 1: is there any like do you subscribe Stanislavski at all?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's absolutely nothing. I have no
Speaker 1: idea what any of it really means. I don't know
Speaker 1: what people peg you as method, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that's really like You're not what it is, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I go what does that mean? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: I you know, if I have to get out to
Speaker 1: scene and they're waiting for me, um, and it's a
Speaker 1: Western I'm not going to say, is there a horse?
Speaker 1: Can I ride a horse? No? Otherwise I walk. Now
Speaker 1: I'm not going in the car ada to me, I go,
Speaker 1: is that method? Because I cannot use anything but what
Speaker 1: they would have had at the time. Now I'll be
Speaker 1: jumping in the car. I'm getting wired. I've got a
Speaker 1: mic on me, you know, and you have to you know,
Speaker 1: use your imagination. UM for me. I think maybe people
Speaker 1: say method, maybe because I find it very difficult to
Speaker 1: jump in and out of being me and then being
Speaker 1: a character. If I'm just me on a set, I
Speaker 1: can't play a character because people know me too much
Speaker 1: and I can't stop. So I'll start coming out with
Speaker 1: things that are me answering the question instead. So I
Speaker 1: do a ride on the set, always going I want
Speaker 1: to be more the character than me. But that's because
Speaker 1: probably because I've had no training and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to switch it on and off really quickly, and
Speaker 1: so people go, oh, his method, I don't know. Yeh.
Speaker 1: Was this one a particularly hard one to shake? Given
Speaker 1: you know, as I was talking about that shot and
Speaker 1: how it's just this calcification of hate. I mean, the
Speaker 1: man is kind of just years of hatred built up
Speaker 1: to the point that he's just numb. And so was
Speaker 1: that a difficult one to shake at the end of
Speaker 1: each day? No, because I think he's very soulful underneath,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's very smart. He recognizes that whilst
Speaker 1: he is the boss of his own domain, um, that
Speaker 1: he is a puppet um uh and the puppet masters
Speaker 1: of the politicians back in d C. And very much
Speaker 1: for me, it's an indictment of politics and parliticians. Um.
Speaker 1: These men who go and live and die based on
Speaker 1: decisions that are made in Washington and then whimsically they
Speaker 1: make a different choice. Um. And so he's somebody who
Speaker 1: has done horrendous things, seen horrendous things done too friends
Speaker 1: of his. Um. You know, had to listen to friends
Speaker 1: of his screaming and pain and dying, you know, for
Speaker 1: years and years. Um uh. No, he in the big picture, UM,
Speaker 1: he is not the victim of genocide. You know, he
Speaker 1: is enacting that. Um. But for him, he's doing his duty.
Speaker 1: He's a soldier and and he does it well and
Speaker 1: comes to like every soldier seems to talk about um,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're when your brother in
Speaker 1: arms is killed mutilated, then you cannot help but start
Speaker 1: to crew hatred for the person who did that, whether
Speaker 1: or not you ever would have had any hatred for
Speaker 1: them in the first place. In fact, they look at
Speaker 1: Blocker and Yellowhawk can say, well, Blocker would be Yellowhawk
Speaker 1: and yellow Hawk's position, and there is a great respect
Speaker 1: between the two of them, um. And we see them
Speaker 1: come to give up the the the the the armor
Speaker 1: around each of one of any of each of them
Speaker 1: as they get closer to the blocker. Civilization is that
Speaker 1: something that kind of rings in the contemporary in a
Speaker 1: certain sense. So it's not it's not like you canings ratio,
Speaker 1: there's no difference. It's not like you can, you know,
Speaker 1: track down an old Civil War veteran or something like
Speaker 1: that and talk to them. But like, how did you
Speaker 1: prepare in terms of talking to people and maybe trying
Speaker 1: to build the character that way? Did you? I used
Speaker 1: experience from actually past times going and talking with marine
Speaker 1: recon groups down at Pendleton UM. Here in the difference
Speaker 1: between them speaking groups and speaking one on one um
Speaker 1: looking at the Army Times, which is very surprisingly open
Speaker 1: about the psychology of combat and how it affects soldiers,
Speaker 1: and one of the first publications to really start talking
Speaker 1: about PTSD, which obviously in the time of hostiles, people
Speaker 1: didn't even there wasn't a thing. There wasn't melancholia, and
Speaker 1: maybe some people called it that, but it was just ignored,
Speaker 1: really on on on on the most part um. And
Speaker 1: then what what I thought about was, well, what would
Speaker 1: his childhood have been. He would have been born in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. Soldiers were not meant to be fighting in
Speaker 1: the Civil War twelve years old, but they were. There
Speaker 1: were plenty of twelve thirteen, fourteen year old fighting. So
Speaker 1: I said, all right, he was at Shiloh, right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the hornets nest um. That's what he's
Speaker 1: been brought up on. That's what he understands. That what
Speaker 1: that's what he does best, and and it's ingrained, you know,
Speaker 1: in his marrow. You also learned the Shayen language for
Speaker 1: this role, which I'm always fascinated about language because it
Speaker 1: it can reveal, you know, how how a culture communicates
Speaker 1: with one another within anything, reveals a lot about that culture,
Speaker 1: and I'm just curious, just beyond the nuts and bolts
Speaker 1: of how to speak it, did learning Cheyenne reveal anything
Speaker 1: to you about the Cheyenne people? That was, they were
Speaker 1: fascinating things that Chief Philip would teach me, which I don't.
Speaker 1: I do apologize, it's been a year and I can't
Speaker 1: going in great details. But more of a circular thinking
Speaker 1: than a linear thinking. Um and and I liked using
Speaker 1: that with Blocker, that he's a very linear thinker. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he's very um, short and abrupt, but he he
Speaker 1: truly understands his you know, enemy who has been forced
Speaker 1: to be his enemy. You know, he's not his true
Speaker 1: natural enemy whatsoever. It's it's just because he's been told
Speaker 1: he has to go do this. It has becomes so um.
Speaker 1: But yes, a very very different way of thinking. A
Speaker 1: sense of forgiveness towards him that absolutely kills him. You
Speaker 1: know that that that he sees that yellow Hawk is
Speaker 1: capable of, that affects him deeply. Um. And they're just
Speaker 1: a sense in himself of understanding he is attacking their land,
Speaker 1: they are defending their land. There's an enormous difference in
Speaker 1: that he may now be fighting out of sincere grief
Speaker 1: because of lost loved ones. But they arrived and we're
Speaker 1: taking you know, the land. This is an act of genocide. Um.
Speaker 1: So that that he that's always present in his mind
Speaker 1: in his dealings with Yellowhawk, even though he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to let that show um at all. And and this this,
Speaker 1: this this sense of forgiveness that Yellowhawk has which helps
Speaker 1: him in many ways to actually learn how to be
Speaker 1: human and interact again after so many years just in
Speaker 1: the company of men who kill. Uh. Just just talking
Speaker 1: to Scott about this yesterday actually, Um, the horsemanship element
Speaker 1: of this, he said that, you know, I guess it
Speaker 1: was the Wrangler or somebody mentioned that he had never
Speaker 1: seen an actor and his horse so at one with
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, I love that horse Seeker is the
Speaker 1: name is. Yeah, we just used him again in the film.
Speaker 1: I just finished doing. Uh yeah, no it yeah it
Speaker 1: clearly he definitely was assessing me for a while, and
Speaker 1: I was failing to begin with. He wasn't he wasn't responding.
Speaker 1: He could he could tell that I wasn't up to it.
Speaker 1: And then uh, and then I just kept practicing practice
Speaker 1: in and eventually he went yet, all right, he's my man.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll do what he's asking me too. And
Speaker 1: he was incredible. And how far back does your experience
Speaker 1: with horses it goes? Because we all piled into a
Speaker 1: varian when I was a kid and disappeared off to
Speaker 1: Portugal and didn't go to school for a year. We
Speaker 1: just kind of lived on a farm and sort of
Speaker 1: lad this sort of barefoot huckle berythin kind of existence
Speaker 1: for a bit. And there was this eccentric lady who
Speaker 1: had a horse stables and she m after having a
Speaker 1: few that day, she took me into a lunch paddock
Speaker 1: and it's the first time I've been on a horse.
Speaker 1: I've been run over by horses, by little Shetland ponies,
Speaker 1: but it was in a lot of mud, and bizarrely,
Speaker 1: they actually they stamped on my chest, which they really do,
Speaker 1: but I was in mud so it didn't cause a
Speaker 1: lot of damage. But she put me in lungeon paddock
Speaker 1: bare back and just had me riding bare back, cantering around,
Speaker 1: laying backwards, laying forwards, laying sideways, standing up on horse,
Speaker 1: all of that. So you just get very comfortable. So
Speaker 1: my technique is probably abysmal, but I feel like I
Speaker 1: know how to stay on that horse. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been bucked off a bunch of times. I would take
Speaker 1: this horse down to the beach. I was like eleven.
Speaker 1: It was Portugal. It was you know, the early eighties.
Speaker 1: We would she would just let us take the horses.
Speaker 1: Me my sister would head down to the beach. You know,
Speaker 1: she never asked us for anything. We just take them.
Speaker 1: They would gallop. We go to a local bar. It
Speaker 1: was Portugal. They didn't care. I'd go in there. I'd
Speaker 1: get a beer. At that age, we'd be like wrapping
Speaker 1: up our horses outside and then we'd sort of fall asleep,
Speaker 1: and the horses were walkers back. So I had a
Speaker 1: nice comfort and a history with horses. And this horse
Speaker 1: seeker is extraordinary. I guess that adds a whole of
Speaker 1: their element. Though. When you're trying to act on top
Speaker 1: of a horse, though, right, I mean you get your
Speaker 1: mind done. Yeah, yeah, you can't be you can't be
Speaker 1: worried about the horse you got. You guys just gotta
Speaker 1: be second nature. Yeah. Uh. You know, this is one
Speaker 1: another of many many explorations in another dialect, another culture
Speaker 1: that you've you know, explored throughout your career, and uh
Speaker 1: in correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think
Speaker 1: you've ever played a Welshman? Is that true? Uh? Truly true? Yeah? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: is that funny? Yeah? I mean saying that though. I
Speaker 1: mean I was born on a dairy farm in Wales,
Speaker 1: um but I was only there until I was one
Speaker 1: and a half. I don't have memories of it. I
Speaker 1: only remember just you know, I've visited, I've gone back
Speaker 1: to have a west, but I don't remember. Actually, you
Speaker 1: know until the as you wanted a half? Who does?
Speaker 1: I just had this strange kind of question of do
Speaker 1: you ever sense or feel like you given that you
Speaker 1: explore so many different things that are different from your
Speaker 1: own background, do you ever feel like a sense of
Speaker 1: losing yourself through all of these different explorations don't make
Speaker 1: any sense? Well, you mean in my life, just losing
Speaker 1: touch with your own I don't know, not heritage, but
Speaker 1: just like having never No, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: I think, I think, well, let you tell me if
Speaker 1: you if I get what you mean. Whilst you're filming, Yes,
Speaker 1: you do feel that because you're just the way that
Speaker 1: I approach things. I think that maybe better trained actors
Speaker 1: might be able to hang onto themselves a little bit better.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting I'm sort of some victim of what
Speaker 1: I do. I'm in control of it all the time,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to do it unless I
Speaker 1: kind of keep that character present an awful lot. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, like I was saying to my family this morning,
Speaker 1: I'm back. I'm talking again. You know. The character wasn't
Speaker 1: a big chatty Cathy, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like I would just want to talk a mile
Speaker 1: a minute. There's you do feel a release and like
Speaker 1: I'm me again. There's a freedom to it, but enjoy that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. You know. I've never never had, you know,
Speaker 1: a year go by without pretending to be somebody else.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's healthy or not, but it
Speaker 1: is what it is. It's a living yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: more than that as well, and I like it being
Speaker 1: I like it trying to be more than that. You know,
Speaker 1: as an Englishman, you sort of try to downplay always
Speaker 1: the meaningfulness of things because it's it's it's not that
Speaker 1: it's not meaningful. It's incredibly meaningful to me, but I
Speaker 1: don't like to announce that because you hope that it's
Speaker 1: in the eye of the beholder. You know, it's up
Speaker 1: to them. Hey, it is what they think it is.
Speaker 1: They think it's horrible, it is horrible, they think it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: is fantastics, whatever they think it is. It's not for
Speaker 1: me to tell anybody what they think is. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a there's you know, look, we're all living our lives.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be as you know, fulfilling, as weak
Speaker 1: as as it can be. So you want to try
Speaker 1: and do that in every moment. So I try to
Speaker 1: incorporate that in the acting as well, make that meaningful. Um.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, inevitably sometimes you do, especially on very long shoots,
Speaker 1: you kind of go where have I gone? Like? Who
Speaker 1: am I right now? You do feel a little bit
Speaker 1: like sometimes you're treading water and is this really hell?
Speaker 1: Fee um? But like I said, but then the obsession
Speaker 1: you sort of can't help but kick it. You know
Speaker 1: you can't help, but want to get back to it.
Speaker 1: You don't want to kick it. Do you ever think
Speaker 1: about hanging it up? I mean, we've all the time,
Speaker 1: all this time, I'm always doing that. I love it,
Speaker 1: I hate it. I think that is the nature of
Speaker 1: being obsessed with something, isn't it. It's you know, because
Speaker 1: it can be so satisfying, it can also be so
Speaker 1: disappointing as well. Um, And you know there's many different
Speaker 1: elements to doing this. You know. Sometimes you look and
Speaker 1: you go, man, it's not the sort of purest thing
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be always. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know that's life. You deal with it, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to whine about it at all. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm constantly saying that, Yeah, I think that's it,
Speaker 1: and then I kind of sit back and go what
Speaker 1: else can I do? And I don't often come up
Speaker 1: with an answer. Particularly, it seems to Lewis is doing
Speaker 1: like he's he's hanging it up now, but I feel
Speaker 1: like he'll be back. I get very strong compulsions to
Speaker 1: hang it up. But I'll just never say that because
Speaker 1: with you on that, I suspect I probably will, you know,
Speaker 1: prove myself a liar track. Um, do you feel like
Speaker 1: there are things still left undone for you in terms
Speaker 1: of this career? I hope? So, you know, like if
Speaker 1: you were to hang it up today, would you feel
Speaker 1: like I've done what I wanted to do? I've done
Speaker 1: more than I ever thought. You know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't expect to have done. But what I've done, I
Speaker 1: didn't dwell on it an awful lot. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: was just sort of in the moment, going, this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. You know, this is nice. I didn't see
Speaker 1: this coming, and you know it kind of happened and
Speaker 1: here we are. Um, but you know, of course, you
Speaker 1: know it would be a big sort of a little death,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it if you find that you've actually saw across
Speaker 1: every rubicon you've put simbly? Can so? I hope? So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Scott Cooper a little bit, um, like
Speaker 1: I said, and tell your right to you. I feel
Speaker 1: like when you work with Scott he brings some of
Speaker 1: your best workout. I still think that Out of the
Speaker 1: Furnace and certainly Hostiles is some of your finest work.
Speaker 1: So that relationship. Can you talk about that? And and uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's certainly just my opinion. But why do
Speaker 1: you think it is that you turn up different work.
Speaker 1: It's it's a funny thing, he just um, he kind
Speaker 1: of it's this invisible quality to Scott, which which I
Speaker 1: mean is a compliment in that he doesn't attempt to
Speaker 1: kind of imprint himself upon his films. He likes that.
Speaker 1: He really loves the characters. Maybe it comes from acting.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure, um why that is. I don't
Speaker 1: really think we need to analyze it. Um, but he just, Um,
Speaker 1: it just feels very simple. It feels very conversational. He
Speaker 1: likes seeing what I'm going to come up with. Um.
Speaker 1: He likes asking what the hell was that all about?
Speaker 1: Why was I doing that? You know, I like having
Speaker 1: a given answer to that. Um. It's it's just a
Speaker 1: very good and easy going back and forth, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: There's there's very you know, just sort of very straightforward
Speaker 1: talk between the two of us. We we like analyzing
Speaker 1: the hell out of everything and then kind of forgetting
Speaker 1: that and pushing it away and just going with your gut. Um.
Speaker 1: But with all of that knowledge that you've gained through
Speaker 1: sort of analyzing the hell out of it previously. Um,
Speaker 1: it's there always in the in the in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind. So it kind of brings itself to
Speaker 1: the four when you are sort of going just with
Speaker 1: your gut what feels right, and that's the essence of it.
Speaker 1: It feels right, you know. I like working with him
Speaker 1: as much as any director I've ever worked with, you know,
Speaker 1: he's extraordinary, And just to branch out away from hostiles
Speaker 1: a little bit, I wanted to cover some other things here. Uh.
Speaker 1: It only occurred to me as I was prepping that
Speaker 1: this year is the thirtieth Niver to Empire at the Sun.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, thirty years. Um, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: I've been doing this way, not that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: push you to quit. By the way, it's amazing that
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for thirty years. And I have
Speaker 1: no advice for people starting out in acting. I still don't.
Speaker 1: When people ask me, wait, what's you know? How do
Speaker 1: you do it? I go, I don't know, and they
Speaker 1: go really three decades and I still don't know. And
Speaker 1: I do that with every single part that comes up.
Speaker 1: I get it, and then I go, oh god, what
Speaker 1: have I done. I've forgotten how to do this, And
Speaker 1: I sort of, you know, try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: get my way out of this one, and you know,
Speaker 1: convinced people that I do know what I'm doing, and
Speaker 1: and it really ends up kind of being sort of
Speaker 1: a dialogue with yourself. Really is the way it is.
Speaker 1: The answer to me always it's always just like keeping
Speaker 1: myself interested. And and that's when, you know, ironically that
Speaker 1: also seems to be when people seem to respond most
Speaker 1: is when I'm actually not thinking about them in the slightest,
Speaker 1: you know, um, and and and and one consistent thing
Speaker 1: is always be very very happy making the fool out
Speaker 1: of yourself, you know. And it's not you. It isn't
Speaker 1: you up there, So don't get hung up on being embarrassed.
Speaker 1: Don't get embarrassed, you know, just push all that out
Speaker 1: the way. It's not you, you know. And until you
Speaker 1: do that, I think that I think that it must
Speaker 1: be a horrible job. But the minute that you kind
Speaker 1: of have this it's not you, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: you do, it's not you in that moment, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: then then you really start to find some some joy
Speaker 1: in it. Well, that performance from Empire the Side, I
Speaker 1: find it to be. It's still one of the greatest
Speaker 1: child actor performances of all time. I don't think Spielberg
Speaker 1: has often talked about in terms of how he works
Speaker 1: with actors. People tend to talk about the spectacle of
Speaker 1: it all. But I'm curious what what you took away
Speaker 1: from that experience? What impact did he have on you
Speaker 1: as a young man finding your voice as it's not
Speaker 1: fresh in my memory, but it's good. It's for me.
Speaker 1: It's it's during the process good memories. Afterwards bad memories,
Speaker 1: but that's because of the way people reacted. And I
Speaker 1: saw that, oh they were treating me differently, so that heired,
Speaker 1: but during it, nothing but good memories of the process.
Speaker 1: How did Stephen work with me? Um? I remember him
Speaker 1: saying he always liked my first take best, and you
Speaker 1: know it occasionally just sort of mess around with me
Speaker 1: off camera and stuff. But um, you know, I just
Speaker 1: I just I just I really enjoyed it. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed being away from school. I really enjoyed traveling in places.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the sort of community that you felt
Speaker 1: in making the film. Um and And I liked, even
Speaker 1: at that age, even at twelve thirteen, that I liked,
Speaker 1: uh trying to figure out how to be this other person,
Speaker 1: you know, who came from a totally different background to me.
Speaker 1: Um And, I really enjoyed that. It just I don't
Speaker 1: know where that comes from, but it just really kicked
Speaker 1: in there of me going, I love this, this this
Speaker 1: you know, it's being necessary to obsess about a person
Speaker 1: for a certain out of time. You know, even at
Speaker 1: that age, I went out get a kick out of this,
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Have you ever seen that somebody put together
Speaker 1: a video where they took you You're scene from Rescue
Speaker 1: Dawn where you're talking to Steve's on and you are
Speaker 1: describing essentially a scene from Empire of the Sun where
Speaker 1: you but right, it was a true story. Indeed, his childhood.
Speaker 1: You see the fire pilots and and they were you know,
Speaker 1: they were strafening his U house and neighborhood, and instead
Speaker 1: of him hating them, he looked and said, I want
Speaker 1: to be them. And exactly like on the Rooftop and
Speaker 1: Empire the Sun, he looks at them and they're like
Speaker 1: gods to him. They edited that together and it felt
Speaker 1: like flashback. It was kind of interesting. It's kind of amazing. Also,
Speaker 1: your work with Chris Nolan on the Batman franchise obviously
Speaker 1: launched this whole new level of exposure for you. And
Speaker 1: something I'm curious about is, just as someone who is
Speaker 1: so fiercely protective of keeping your personal life private, did
Speaker 1: that provide just a mixed blessing and absolutely mixed emotions
Speaker 1: about it. I'm always eternally grateful to Chris because allowed
Speaker 1: I mean, for instance, rescued Dawn Werner and I have
Speaker 1: been trying to put that together for a few years.
Speaker 1: American psycho Mary Harron and I have been trying to
Speaker 1: put that together for a few years. No one was
Speaker 1: interested why because of me? They kept saying, why do
Speaker 1: you want in for it? Chris cast me in Batman
Speaker 1: and suddenly you know, I'm in American side came before that.
Speaker 1: We have to fight tooth and nail for it, you know,
Speaker 1: to do that and everything. But you know, like suddenly
Speaker 1: everyone said, yeah, all right, okay, yeah, we'll go with him.
Speaker 1: Um it did change everything. Um you know, it was
Speaker 1: the first um time I've done a film of that magnitude.
Speaker 1: That was a real learning curve for me. Um with it,
Speaker 1: and um it did change things. Um I wrestled with
Speaker 1: it for a long time. I still do on occasions.
Speaker 1: But UM, you know, I'm I'm learning just a except
Speaker 1: except the good things, you know, bring bring focused on
Speaker 1: all the good side of it, and it's brought me
Speaker 1: that that, like I said earlier, way more than I
Speaker 1: ever could have expected. You know, I'm not talking financially,
Speaker 1: I'm talking in terms of opportunity sees. I'm talking in
Speaker 1: terms of the people I get to meet, the access,
Speaker 1: you know, the opportunities and work um with that. You
Speaker 1: know um and and so you know that will always
Speaker 1: be very very very special for me, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that much of my memories of it is sitting in
Speaker 1: a pup tent just waiting because in my my suggestion,
Speaker 1: I said, no one can ever see me without the
Speaker 1: cow long. They cannot. You cannot bust blow apart that mystery,
Speaker 1: so we must not. So I've got to be in
Speaker 1: a tent the whole time, and then seven months later,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, this is my idea. I'm
Speaker 1: still in it. So the irony there is that I
Speaker 1: think the American Psycho performance is what led a lot
Speaker 1: of the kind of fan world to include you on
Speaker 1: these kind of fan lists of who they wanted to see,
Speaker 1: as Bruce Wayne eventually interested in the early two thousands arts.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Well, I guess you know,
Speaker 1: the true fans always saw that. You know, Bruce Wayne
Speaker 1: had this great darkness to him. You know, there is
Speaker 1: a there is a philanthropy. Obviously hopefully there but it
Speaker 1: is something he's having a battle of monster, you know,
Speaker 1: within himself, and so I suppose that in that respect,
Speaker 1: you know, Bateman, Batman, they started to see that, well
Speaker 1: maybe this guy can do it. Have you seen Dunkerk yet?
Speaker 1: I loved it, man, I kind of you know, knowing Chris,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the culmination of so much that
Speaker 1: he's been aiming for, and he's been achieving incredible films beforehand,
Speaker 1: but that is just slight blissful. Watching that film. I
Speaker 1: was amasmerized by it. Yeah, I think it might be
Speaker 1: his best work. It's uh, there's this moment in the
Speaker 1: middle of it where it kind of clicked for me
Speaker 1: what he was doing with the timelines, and I just
Speaker 1: all the time I was fantastic. I said wow out loud.
Speaker 1: I was just like wow in the middle of the
Speaker 1: and and it was for me. I looked at it
Speaker 1: for a bit and I was being too cerebral about
Speaker 1: I was looking at a one week, you know, one day, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And I was going trying to work it out, and
Speaker 1: I was enjoying that, and then I went, no, hold on,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I just like, let it happen. And that's
Speaker 1: when I really started to enjoy the whole experience. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's an incredible film. Yeah, absolutely. I had Andy
Speaker 1: Serkis in here, Oh yeah a few weeks back talking
Speaker 1: about his films that we're making the Jungle Book. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk about performance capture. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interestingly for you know, it's very interesting to me about that, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, is this just gonna be something for very
Speaker 1: specific films or is that the future of acting? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I've just gone through something where
Speaker 1: we used a great deal of prosthetics and we were
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, how amazing we felt. War of
Speaker 1: the plan of the apes was the fact of the expressions. Now,
Speaker 1: Jungle Book is different because of the physiognomy. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm playing Baghear of the Panther, so you've got to
Speaker 1: take somebody's face and actually really morph it words. With
Speaker 1: an ape, it's far more human um in respect. There
Speaker 1: were scenes in the World's Planet the Apes where you
Speaker 1: just completely forgot that you were you were listening to
Speaker 1: apes talking. You know, these the emotions were incredible, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's clearly, like, you know, the most experienced actor
Speaker 1: out there. So he's a wonderful person to start with.
Speaker 1: Um with this, and yeah, we're going to be doing
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that in a few days time. Um,
Speaker 1: it's surprising you very quickly. Just get used to having account.
Speaker 1: Don't have to drop the weight really quickly hanging around
Speaker 1: your head. Um and uh. And then you know the
Speaker 1: question is, well, at what point are they going to
Speaker 1: be able to really get the human face and master that?
Speaker 1: And at what point does that mean we lease our likeness?
Speaker 1: Is essentially like, yeah, here you go, you can have
Speaker 1: my likeness and go and make a film, you know that,
Speaker 1: which doesn't sound nice. It's all to me that sounds
Speaker 1: that horror. Um. But you know, is there is there
Speaker 1: ever going to come a point where you go, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to be chumpier for this. Well,
Speaker 1: you you don't have to do any thing. We're going
Speaker 1: to do that with digital capture later on, you know,
Speaker 1: Or will it be a world where, you know, prosthetics
Speaker 1: and digital capture kind of work together. I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer, but it's certainly was very enjoyable when Andy's
Speaker 1: just a hell of a fellow. We worked together back
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen years back was that we did
Speaker 1: a film based on Saxo Grammaticus. Is um take on Hamlet,
Speaker 1: which was called at the time am lead uh and
Speaker 1: which is what Shakespeare then based handle it upon. He
Speaker 1: based it on Saxo Grammaticus his work. Yeah cool and yeah,
Speaker 1: being able to just hop back in and do whatever
Speaker 1: you're about to do the reshoots. You don't have to
Speaker 1: lose everything that you've done for Cheney for that because
Speaker 1: there's no kind of bald, bleached eyebrow canvas right now.
Speaker 1: So it's perfect because they pull these dots all over
Speaker 1: your face and they want to see your skin as
Speaker 1: much as possible. So I'm actually in an ideal state
Speaker 1: of um being to be doing the motion capture. You
Speaker 1: just wrapped that the Dick Cheney yesterday thing yesterday with
Speaker 1: Adam McKay. It's a called back seat, is that what
Speaker 1: they're calling? Maybe not, it's probably not. It's probably working hard. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen the photos on set. It was uncanny. You looked.
Speaker 1: You look incredibly similar to the man uh as a
Speaker 1: sort of scholar of this guy you were played to
Speaker 1: hire or hired to play. What did you learn about
Speaker 1: him that was striking? I learned a great deal, you
Speaker 1: know that first off, just in terms of portrayal of
Speaker 1: a man like that, that you quickly realize that mimicry
Speaker 1: is entertaining for you know, Skits five ten minutes. But
Speaker 1: he's gonna get very tiring over a film because you're
Speaker 1: gonna be guy. Oh, stop trying so hard, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, give me some depth, give me
Speaker 1: actually something, give me a person properly. So the you know,
Speaker 1: absolute you should, you should, you should try to get
Speaker 1: down those mannerisms exactly, but then relax a little bit
Speaker 1: and just really go for the vibe of the person
Speaker 1: um And hopefully we've achieved that. And and you know,
Speaker 1: like when you investigate any person, no matter what your
Speaker 1: political leanings, you are going to find things and people
Speaker 1: who you know despise the man are going to go
Speaker 1: How dare you say? There are nice things about Shaney?
Speaker 1: There absolutely are. He is recognized by everybody as a
Speaker 1: very wonderful family man. For instance, you know, when the
Speaker 1: Republican Party were absolutely you know, as an athema to
Speaker 1: be gay, his daughter came out as lesbian and he
Speaker 1: didn't hesitate. Hey, I love you, darling, I'll always support you.
Speaker 1: He didn't care what the party said, um at all um.
Speaker 1: But he was, you know, a highly opinionated man and
Speaker 1: very much into the strong unitary executive, which is you know,
Speaker 1: extreme presidential powers. Um. And you know, I came to
Speaker 1: believe that this is a man who I could find
Speaker 1: no evidence that he financially gained. Yes, Halliburton kind of
Speaker 1: their stock went through the roof, but Obama continued to
Speaker 1: use Halliburton afterwards. Yes, ridiculous mistakes were made. But then
Speaker 1: there's also what I attempted to do always was to
Speaker 1: really put myself in his shoes and not to judge him,
Speaker 1: but to truly try to understand him. And then it's
Speaker 1: for Adam to have the bigger perspective, and that that's
Speaker 1: going to make a far more entertaining film with the
Speaker 1: confusion of really presenting a human there rather than just
Speaker 1: sort of caricature. You know, we're clearly every filmmaker is
Speaker 1: just anti changing. So I said that's to Adam from
Speaker 1: the get guy. I said, I'm gonna go for this,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be taking his point of view.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna be given every argument. There's a
Speaker 1: few arguments in there that I still can't understand. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have been able to meet
Speaker 1: the man. But I went through doing months of research
Speaker 1: because I thought, you know, if he's going to give
Speaker 1: me the time of day, if you know, maybe he'll
Speaker 1: say ten minutes and he'll test me. And I thought
Speaker 1: he'll test me. He'll really kind of you know, run
Speaker 1: the game and and be chucking out all these acronyms
Speaker 1: of facts and dates just to see if I've done
Speaker 1: my homework. So I was like, I've got to have
Speaker 1: it all down. I can't be staring at notes. And
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe he'll let me hang out for the
Speaker 1: day and I'll get to see the man actually you know,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat somewhat relaxed, stay as much as you
Speaker 1: can when you when you when you're interviewed somebody, but
Speaker 1: in their home territory. And so I got to that
Speaker 1: point where I finally felt, you know, I've kind of
Speaker 1: cracked it, like you know, I think I pretty much.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, you can never truly understand the
Speaker 1: whole person's life. You're doing a two hour story, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not doing an eight year story. But I said, right,
Speaker 1: I'm ready and I contacted production and I said, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Let's reach out. And I've spoken with a
Speaker 1: couple of friends of his and they said, it's bet
Speaker 1: with you in a second. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: correct or not. They said, it's been in a second.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can say that hasn't been said to
Speaker 1: him before. You know, absolutely hit charity. But legal from
Speaker 1: the production side immediately said do not go anywhere near that.
Speaker 1: Do not go. And it was a strange experience because
Speaker 1: every single character I played, who who who is alive
Speaker 1: is a real character I've always met. And you gain
Speaker 1: an all for not knowledge from that, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're not seeing their public persona. You're seeing that you
Speaker 1: know it was somewhat their private persona. And I do
Speaker 1: rude that I didn't get that opportunity, um, But so
Speaker 1: I had to, you know, use my imagination there in
Speaker 1: in in, in in how he would be. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information out there. There's there's lots
Speaker 1: of video footage, there's many books you know, written by him,
Speaker 1: written by others, um. And you know, I was just
Speaker 1: buried very deep in his in his world. Maybe you'll
Speaker 1: see him at the premiere. Yeah, I don't know. No,
Speaker 1: you started to touch on my next question, which was
Speaker 1: just this idea of avoiding mimicry, impersonation. Essentially you've played
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Burry, Dickie Ekland, Dieter Danglar. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just finding ways to actually breathe life into the person
Speaker 1: as a character, not just as this well, I think
Speaker 1: you kind of have to start from a real study
Speaker 1: of of yes, there's mannerisms, but but then you know
Speaker 1: that's a fairly shallow study. And then you've got to
Speaker 1: start getting into why the hell are they doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and that's when it really starts to kick off.
Speaker 1: And then you've got to get that freedom, you know,
Speaker 1: to have a little bit license in there, um and
Speaker 1: uh and do you know your version of what that is.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I think it just becomes very tedious of watching
Speaker 1: somebody really desperately trying to convince you that they are
Speaker 1: this person, which is like, that's that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You know, you got you've got to catch the the
Speaker 1: whole um, you know, the or the person. That's what
Speaker 1: you're going for the last thing for me here, uh,
Speaker 1: with with just the sense of equality in the industry
Speaker 1: going on right now, and I find an interesting You've
Speaker 1: worked with a number of female directors, Jillian Armstrong, Jane Campion,
Speaker 1: Mary Harron, and Lisa Choladinko. Do you ask someone who
Speaker 1: of some status in this industry. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: if this is true, but presumably you could greenlight a
Speaker 1: movie you're Christian Bale. Do you feel any kind of
Speaker 1: personal uh responsibility to work with a wide gamut of
Speaker 1: I think you pick somebody because they're the best of
Speaker 1: what they do, you know. I think there's something patronizing
Speaker 1: about saying I would I would, I would want to
Speaker 1: work with a female director because they are a woman.
Speaker 1: You want with them because they're bloody fantastic and they're talented.
Speaker 1: And there's many, many, incredible talented the female directors and uh,
Speaker 1: every single one that you just mentioned that excellently experienced with,
Speaker 1: you know, and and they were phenomenal, um you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: huge cultural shift that's happening right now, and hopefully it
Speaker 1: continues on doesn't just kind of become a fad that
Speaker 1: dies out. It doesn't look like it's going to be
Speaker 1: that way um at all um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: all strength to it and and and equally you know,
Speaker 1: in all respects in terms of just sort of film
Speaker 1: will only become far more interesting with way more perspectives
Speaker 1: being included. And that's everything, you know, that's that's that's ethnicities,
Speaker 1: that's um uh the whole, the whole gamut, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And I would hope that you know, America um well
Speaker 1: would embrace that, you know, rather than kick against it, um,
Speaker 1: because it would be much richer. Uh library of films
Speaker 1: that we would have to watch. We'll put movie is
Speaker 1: called Hustle Else. It opens December two. You should absolutely
Speaker 1: go see it. Christian Bale, thank you for being on
Speaker 1: the show Man. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You
Speaker 1: don't do this a lot, so I feel very privileged.
Speaker 1: Thanks you so much. Think it might be the first
Speaker 1: time I've done it. Maybe I've got very short term memory.
Speaker 1: A glance at just to make sure. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it all right, Oh, I know he's yer.
Speaker 1: Seeing all the things you're seeing, all the things you done,
Speaker 1: makes you feel thank you after a while. Captain you
Speaker 1: do know Chief yellow Hawk, the Army wants to be
Speaker 1: certain that the chief gets harmed him on Canna safely
Speaker 1: without incident any undia. What are you sad? He said,
Speaker 1: Jam and two of you want to get launch just five.
Speaker 1: I've killed savages because that's my job. You have no
Speaker 1: idea what it does to him. Man, M I hate him.
Speaker 1: I got a war bag of reasons to hate him.
Speaker 1: This will be done, and it will be done by
Speaker 1: you for rage over put him and change. You believe
Speaker 1: in the Lord, Jessica, m hm, yes I do. He's
Speaker 1: been blind to what's going on out here. Done understand
Speaker 1: that when we lay our heads down out of here,
Speaker 1: we're all prisoners. M No, I can't living in that's
Speaker 1: walked a crawled if you do it enough, did you forward?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm afraid of. H I just gotta take
Speaker 1: your news nor thor just as easily be us in here.
Speaker 1: And he's changed. Sometimes I end me the finality of death,
Speaker 1: the certainty, and I have to drive those thoughts away.
Speaker 1: When I wait, something tells me you ain't got the
Speaker 1: nerve to fire that woman m