10 Times Christian Bale Left Us Speechless

The biggest misconception about Christian Bale is that he's a natural chameleon. He isn't - Bale brings to each role recognisable Bale-isms, similar tics that he repeats across almost all his films. What sets Bale apart from the rest is that he tries harder than arguably any other star actor to transform himself role-on-role. Unlike Daniel Day-Lewis or Tom Hardy, a pair that could be described as 'natural chameleons,' Christian Bale wills himself into diversifying. It's why he's had such a varied and fascinating career - Bale is one of very few star actors that actively force themselves into a new challenge, into playing a wildly different character with each new movie. With The Big Short now on wide release and drawing major awards attention, Bale is set for a (deserved) potential third Oscar nomination for playing real-life hedge funder and financial crash prophesier Mike Burry. In anticipation of the Academy Awards, join us as we look back on ten other great performances by one of the more dedicated and interesting leads in the business. 10) American Hustle It was Bale's first collaboration with David O. Russell - The Fighter - that won the actor his Oscar, but Russell more than any other director indulges Bale's worst tendencies (include his occasional desire to grandstand and over-perform). That said, their second film together American Hustle, though similarly sloppy, still yields some special moments. For one, American Hustle shows off Bale's underrated comic skills. See his con man Irving Rosenfeld's exasperation dealing with precocious ex-wife Jennifer Lawrence, his death-stare when a love rival lifts up his wretched combover in front of the woman he loves. It's a uniquely vulnerable display from Bale, who - complete with protruding belly and 70s disco fashion sense - has never looked less like a movie star. 9) The Flowers Of War Christian Bale has, since Batman Begins, played nothing but the hero, studios apparently assuming audiences can't buy him as a villain anymore. It took Bale going to China to play something approaching a 'bad guy,' in Zhang Yimou's war epic The Flowers of War. As John Miller, Bale isn't an antagonist, but simply a man thrust into heroism against his own will. This American mortician is an opportunist simply caught up in the Japanese invasion of Nanjing, initially out only for his own survival and the promise of booze and money. Forced to pose as a priest in order to keep himself and a group of Chinese schoolgirls alive, at first there's a complete disconnect within Bale, whose entire being suggests a man that couldn't care about anything other than making a quick buck. 8) Out Of The Furnace Scott Cooper, as he's proved time and time again, is a great actors' director with little idea of how to tell a story. With the forgettable Crazy Heart, he directed Jeff Bridges to his first Oscar, and with the stodgy Black Mass, he gave Johnny Depp his comeback. And, in between those two movies, he directed Christian Bale to his most underrated performance. Out of the Furnace, in typical Cooper fashion, is a series of great acting turns lost in a faulty narrative. Bale is phenomenal, however, as a small-town steelworker coming out of prison to find his world changed. Bale's scenes are the reason to track this one down: his barely-contained relief at being released from jail after years; his tearful reconnection with old flame Zoe Saldana. It's Bale at his most touching and least flashy. 7) The Prestige The genius of Bale's performance in Christopher Nolan's drama of obsession The Prestige is only truly noticeable after a second watch, when the viewer knows 'Alfred Borden' was really two people all along. On a second viewing we can appreciate what this really is: a magnificent, and magnificently subtle, dual performance by a single actor. Watch the movie again, closely: where one Alfred is the quieter family man, the other is a more self-centred, boorish figure. They share characteristics - they're both cocky and proud - but the beauty's in the small but clear dissimilarities that Bale brings to each brother. It's perhaps the most under-sung performance in a Christopher Nolan movie, and one of Bale's criminally less-appreciated efforts. 6) American Psycho Patrick Bateman is one of Christian Bale's most iconic characters; he's also one that barely fits in with the rest of the actor's creations. In American Psycho, more so than in any of his other movies, Bale is mannered and artificial, not based in something that feels real unlike so many of his other turns. The performance itself is false, almost cartoonish. Of course, that's entirely the point: the vapid, possibly psychotic Bateman is supposed to seem fake, like a carbon copy of a person without any of the noticeably human characteristics. He's a terrifying sort of blank, perpetually bored and living only for his own pleasure. It could have been so difficult to watch, but American Psycho perversely happens to be home to hands-down Bale's laugh-out-loud funniest performance. 5) Batman Begins All too often these days, talented actors take on the blockbuster roles seemingly as a springboard for their careers, as a way of picking up a check and gaining access to the kinds of 'serious' roles they've never had before. Christian Bale might have used his newfound stardom as Bruce Wayne/Batman to become a major leading man, but he certainly didn't approach the role with any less dedication. Across the Dark Knight trilogy, and in Batman Begins in particular, Bale attacks the title character with as much commitment as he does any of his more purely dramatic roles. This is a part that requires Bale essentially to be three different people: the sad, troubled Bruce, Bruce's swaggering playboy of a public persona, and the growling, intimidating Batman. There's never been a better, more well-rounded performance from an actor in a cape. 4) Rescue Dawn Bale is renowned for his commitment to his craft, and arguably no role has required more from him than his lead in Rescue Dawn. Werner Herzog's Vietnam war drama asks Bale lose an unhealthy amount of weight, along with eating live creepy crawlies, being dunked into a narrow well and almost drowned, and being dragged by his feet down a street behind buffalo. Stunts alone don't make a great performance, however - becoming a character via the Method, though, can. As Dieter Dengler, the US navy pilot captured by Pathet Lao soldiers in 1966, Bale drops the trademark intensity to play a thoroughly decent, resilient man. As Dengler, Bale is uncharacteristically uncomplicated and upbeat. The change-up brings out the good nature in an actor who so rarely chooses to display it. 3) Empire Of The Sun Bale's earliest starring role (not to mention his first ever movie role) is still one of his best precisely because he's so lacking in self-consciousness. This is Bale before he caught the method bug, before he decided he was going to go it full-time and become one of cinema's biggest stars. Aged just 13, in Steven Spielberg's WWII-set mini-epic Empire of the Sun, Bale is heartbreakingly real. In Empire, there are already signs of the transformations to come - Bale going from a healthy, uppity tot at the beginning of the film, to a wiry early-teen by the end. It's not just the physical change that impresses: even at 13, Bale knew how to convincingly turn a character's personality, here from an entitled brat to a humbled and resourceful wild child over the course of the movie. Simply put, it's one of the all-time great child performances. 2) The Machinist Forget the headline weight loss, forget the film's at-times overpowering oddness, its twists and turns - The Machinist's Trevor Reznik is one of Bale's greatest creations regardless of what else is going on. The actor's skeletal frame shows his dedication, but so does his absolute mental immersion, for a part that asks him to sit perpetually on the edge of madness. In The Machinist, Bale is twitchy, volatile, dazed. Until he explodes late in the film, the actor never seems quite present, as if in a trance brought on by his own real run-down state. Reznik is a traumatised figure wrapped in a comfort blanket of denial and manufactured delusion, and Bale himself looks perpetually ready to break down throughout. It's a performance that's so much more than a 63-pound fast. 1) Harsh Times In David Ayer's underrated, under-seen character study of a disturbed war vet causing trouble and looking for employment in a hard corner of LA, Christian Bale achieves the greatest transformation of his career. Never has the actor played to his strengths so well and so internalized a role as he does in Harsh Times, as the explosive Jim Davis. Jim's a complicated, unpredictable kind of character, living a life of crime but trying to break into law enforcement, fun and affectionate yet cold and quick to anger, disciplined and confident yet an always vulnerable fuck-up. He's a typically self-hating Ayer male, but Bale sells it better than any of the director's other actors ever have. It's a firebomb of a performance, horrible and utterly unforgettable.