The role that made Christian Bale feel pathetic: “Completely incapable of everything”
You would think after five decades of playing everything from a man-sized bat to a vampire hunter to an overweight US Vice President in his 60s, Christian Bale could pretty much take on any role without worrying about how he looked or what it might make him feel, but apparently, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that is not the case at all.
Back in 2022, Bale was cast in Thor: Love and Thunder, the fourth film in the Thor franchise and the much-awaited sequel to Taika Waititi’s Thor Ragnarok, which was a huge hit in 2017. Bale’s character was Gorr the God Butcher, a bizarre-looking chap with drawings all over his face and a completely shaved head who apparently was a ‘wielder of the necrosword’, whatever that means.
Bale apparently got some inspiration for his look from the frankly terrifying (but brilliant) video for ‘Come to Daddy’ by Aphex Twin, the 1997 single which shook up EDM and featured Richard James’ face plastered all over each character with a twisted smile on his face that I can say from experience was a complete nightmare to stumble upon watching MTV while spannered at 2am.
The key factor as to why Bale didn’t enjoy his look as Gorr was the long nail extensions he had to have fitted on a daily basis, which he couldn’t cope with at all, although not to the extent he childishly bawled everyone out as he did on the set of Terminator Salvation that time.
He told Deadline about his issues with Gorr’s super-long fingernails, saying: “It rendered me completely incapable of everything. I was pathetic,” he said. “I found myself thinking things like, ‘I don’t think I can walk because I’ve got long nails.’ It affected my brain. I was like, ‘I can’t eat, I’ve got long nails.’ I was trying to type. I couldn’t do anything.”
Which, let’s face it, is in no way an overreaction to being paid something like $10m for about six weeks’ work just because you don’t like your fingernails. Luckily for Bale, his ‘struggle’ paid off because the film, like its predecessor, did very well indeed for Marvel, raking in over three-quarters of a billion dollars at the box office and setting things up nicely for the final Avengers movies, which are on their way this year and next.
As for Bale, he’s been relatively quiet in the few years since the film, although presumably he is enjoying having normal-length fingernails; he will be back in a major movie this year called The Bride. Thanks to the fact that it is directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, it has an all-star cast and is a monster movie that updates 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, with Bale playing Frankenstein’s monster.
He’ll have to put up with a fair bit of make-up for that role, though, so let’s hope it doesn’t give him another existential crisis. He’s also been seen recently alongside another actor wearing a considerable amount of prosthetics in the form of Nicolas Cage, the pair teaming up for a biopic simply called Madden about the legendary NFL coach and commentator John Madden, due for release around November this year.
Bale plays Al Davis, the former head of the Oakland Raiders team of the 1970s who hired Madden as head coach, leading to a Super Bowl win and an era of dominance.
