“It was like he was possessed”: the director who matched Christian Bale every step of the way
If most people were asked to name an actor famed for their complete and utter dedication and ability to immerse themselves into every character they play, then Christian Bale would surely be hovering somewhere towards the top of that list.
Whether he wants it to be or not, those repeated transformations have become a key part of his persona. From his perspective, Bale is only doing what needs to be done to perform the role in the way he thinks it needs to be performed, but the inevitable side effect is that his method has become a talking point unto itself.
If he’s beefing up, slimming down, packing on the pounds, or adopting an accent, whatever lengths Bale goes to for his latest gig generates almost as much conversation as his work onscreen. He’d rather let his performances do the talking, but part and parcel of celebrity is that the general public will largely refuse to separate the artist from the art.
For the most part, those discussions about diving headfirst into the chaos are restricted to the actors. However, there are several exceptions to the rule who could justifiably be called method directors, and they don’t come much more prominent than notoriously maverick auteur Werner Herzog.
His off-camera antics are every bit as notorious as the work he puts in from behind it, so it would always be a fascinating complement of styles when he and Bale put their heads together. That came on 2006’s war drama Rescue Dawn, which allowed both of them to indulge their favoured proclivities.
Bale dropped plenty of weight and stuffed his face full of maggots in the name of realism, while Herzog refused to let the film’s status as his first major dalliance with CGI prevent him from adopting the guerrilla tactics that have made him such a beacon of bizarre anecdotes over the years.
“He’s a very muscular director. He really wrestles it,” Bale reflected to Pop Entertainment. “He liked to do everything that we were doing. Literally, if we had to go into the rapids, he really wanted to get in the rapids with us. He was losing his toenails. He was willing to jump and grab a snake.”
It was all typical Herzog behaviour, to be honest, but Bale knew he wasn’t doing it for his own benefit. “I would watch him, and he’d be performing half the movie right in front of us,” he continued. “Not in the way of, ‘Hey, do what I’m doing’. Just in excitement. He can’t help it. It was like he was possessed.”
Whatever Bale was willing to do in service of Rescue Dawn, Herzog would happily do as well. Directing like a man possessed isn’t for everyone, and while it wasn’t quite supernatural, Klaus Kinski would have probably disagreed and suggested the devil is at work every time his friend and nemesis picked up a camera and called action.
