Quotes By Christian Bale

There are occasions when I've pretended to be in a firefight, and then there are people who have really been in a firefight. Clearly it's absolutely ridiculous, and even disrespectful, to suggest that I understand what that is.

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around.

No, only disappointment in myself on those occasions I didn't manage to rise to the occasion as I felt I should've done. I can always see how to do it, and then the challenge is, Can I manage that each and every day?

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

And being as I'm somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.

An actor should never be larger than the film he's in.

You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not.

It's about pursuing it rather than waiting to see what comes along. That's partly because I found myself getting typecast, as everyone does unless they pursue roles that are very different from what they've done before.

Look, I've got incredible pride for my family. I've absolutely fallen into that cliche of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly.

It's got to do with putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting.

I have a fear of being boring.

Planning a career, I always find that such a tricky thing, because I don't have much of a plan, really.

I do like taking stuff seriously that a lot of people look at as nonsense. I enjoy the insanity of that. And I like the commitment that is needed for that.

I started my career without fans.

My hope is that people will be repulsed by the character's complete lack of ethics and obsession with consumerism - that's what I was saying about the difference between the character's message and the film's message.

All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You've said that you will commit to this part, and I just can't live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.

I like the idea of movies having a magic element. How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It's wonderful, isn't it?

My dad was the biggest influence on my life because he was never boring.

I don't think I'm like any of the characters I've played - they're all really far from who I am.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

The only thing I would unequivocally say is that I have never had any interest in romantic comedy I just couldn't do it. I think I'd be terrible.

So yeah, a good director will be able to listen and hear everything, but have a confident vision of his own that he can say, 'oh yeah - that's a great point.' And you never know; often you can help far more than you think you can, because there's so much more that he's juggling than an actor.

Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.

And I not only inherited an aversion to the nine-to-five routine, but the sense from my parents that being bored and boring is the worst thing that you can be.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest.

I mean, first of all, let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he 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.

There have been many times when you spend a number of months and the finished product is not what you wanted to see. And 'Batman Begins' was what I wanted to see.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

But I learned that there's a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there's not much else that can really get to ya.

Certainly I have no attraction to misery. I don't intentionally go for dark.