Christian Bale on the towering influence of Rowan Atkinson
British acting dynamo Christian Bale first achieved global acclaim at age 13, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s 1987 war drama Empire of the Sun. Through his teen years into early adulthood, Bale developed his acting through a series of minor roles, attaining a higher level of celebrity with his appearance as Patrick Bateman in Mary Harron’s 2000 dark comedy American Psycho.
Over the past two decades, Bale has continued to show his versatility and virtuosity through several critically and commercially favoured movies, including The Machinist, The Prestige, The Dark Knight Trilogy and The Big Short. His portrayal of boxer Dicky Eklund in 2010’s The Fighter also earned him his first and only Academy Award to date.
Bale is known as one of the most dedicated actors in the modern industry. He’s willing and able to take on practically any role, even if it means bordering obesity in Vice or embracing starvation and anorexia for The Machinist. As it turns out, Bale modelled his dedication to the craft on the British comedy hero behind Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson.
Before his lurch to worldwide acclaim as Mr Bean and in the midst of his time as Blackadder, Atkinson took part in a West End production of Larry Shue’s play The Nerd. The two-act comedy ran for several nights in April 1986 and saw Atkinson joined onstage by a 12-year-old Bale.
Bale has long claimed not to have had any formal acting training. Instead, he thanks the wealth of talent he was able to grow up surrounded by, with Atkinson as one of his earliest muses. “One of [my] first jobs ever was with Rowan Atkinson, and I think I look at him as the template,” Bale told GQ in 2019.
During their early interactions, Bale noticed that Atkinson generally kept to himself during downtime backstage. “He would come out, we’d say hello, but he didn’t really socialise. None of us knew him — it was before he did Mr. Bean,” Bale added.
Introversion aside, Atkinson’s reticence allowed him to get into character long before and long after taking the stage. This approach had a profound impact on Bale, who is now famed for his method acting style. “[I saw him]just become this character.” Bale continued, “And I would just watch him; I would see him becoming a character. I was mesmerised.”
Only once the production was finished would Atkinson reveal his true unadulterated personality to Bale and his peers. “And it wasn’t until the whole thing was finished that he invited me to say hello and that I actually spoke to him for the first time,” Bale remembered. “It dawned on me that was my learning phase. I went, ‘Oh, that’s how it’s done then, is it? OK, great.'”
