Christian Bale on why he “doesn’t love film enough” to be a director
There are very few directors who would turn down the opportunity to work with Christian Bale. Throughout his career, the English actor has demonstrated the kind of commitment to playing a given character that makes him one of the most sought-after stars of his generation and has persistently delivered performances of the highest intensity.
At a young age, Bale played for Steven Spielberg in Empire of the Sun before going on to star for the likes of Christopher Nolan in his Dark Knight trilogy, Michael Mann in Public Enemies, David O. Russell in The Fighter and American Hustle and Adam McKay in The Big Short and Vice.
Bale has had the opportunity to work with countless of the most talented directors of the last 30 years of cinema, so one might think that he would at some point be interested in getting behind the camera rather than perform in front of it, as so many of his fellow stars often do.
However, in an interview with Collider, Bale insisted that he has no intention of being a director, mostly because of his lack of knowledge of film. “I don’t really love film enough to be a director,” he said. “I like working on film. I’m interested in people, but I’ve managed to work for thirty years in film without really knowing anything about film.”
What Bale means is that he could not tell anyone about his craft of acting beyond the characters that he has played. He said that actors like Oscar Isaac, those who are trained and “understand their craft very well”, would be able to teach others who are just starting to get into the profession.
However, Bale considers himself “completely useless”. He said: “I have no clue about what I do, how it’s done; it changes with each and every director that I work with. I’m an obsessive personality, and I can obsess about one person, character, for an unhealthy length of time, so that leads to being able to be an actor in the way that I do it.”
When it comes to directing in particular, though, Bale admits that one has to “love film” and be “tuned in” to its “history and dialogue” in order to be successful. “You’re continuing that conversation,” he said, “And I’m just not tuned in in that way. I love making films, and I love the process of it, but I don’t see that many of them.”
