The on-set outburst Christian Bale felt compelled to apologise for: “I was out of order beyond belief”
The majority of actors lauded as the best in the business tend to be among the most dedicated and committed in the industry, but Christian Bale ended up issuing an apology after letting rip at somebody he believed was impacting his typically immersive work.
It was viewed as a huge coup for the flagging franchise when Bale was announced to be headlining Terminator Salvation as John Connor, with the actor riding high on the success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but it speaks volumes about the quality of the film that the leading man’s tirade is by far the most memorable thing about it.
Despite playing the figurehead of humanity’s dwindling band of survivors as they battle against the machine uprising, Bale’s trademark intensity is sorely missing from his performance. Beyond that, he gathered the wrong kind of publicity for the project when his foul-mouthed rant in the direction of cinematographer Shane Hurlbut went viral.
When performing a scene, Hurlbut walked into shot to check on the lighting setup, which ignited Bale’s fury to such an overwhelming extent that he dropped almost 40 F-bombs in the space of a couple of minutes.
Berating Hurlbut as a “fucking amateur”, he even threatened to quit Terminator Salvation altogether if something along similar lines ever happened again, with the DP being placed directly in the firing line and warned his job could be on the line, too.
It wasn’t an ideal scenario for any of the parties involved, but after it captured the attention of the entire world, Bale issued an apology where he voiced deep regret for his actions, going so far as to admit that he’d “acted like a punk” when verbally eviscerating poor Hurlbut, who had to just stand there and take it.
“I was out of order beyond belief. I make no excuses for it,” he conceded. “There is nobody who has heard that tape who has been hit harder than me. The one thing that disturbs me so much is that I’ve heard a lot of people saying that I seem to think that I’m better than anybody else.”
Putting at least a sliver of the blame on his acting technique, Bale suggested that “I’m half John Connor, I’m half Christian there,” although he didn’t quite put the entire disagreement down to his staunch devotion to character.
“When I say ‘I’m not coming back on this set unless he’s fired’, it’s hot air,” he continued. “I don’t want anyone to misunderstand this: I’ve seen a rough cut of the movie and he has done a really wonderful, professional job on this.”
Bale urged prospective viewers not to let “my incredibly embarrassing meltdown to overshadow this movie,” and while it’s up for debate as to whether it did or not, the fact remains that Terminator Salvation never got its planned sequels.
