The Steven Spielberg movie that made Christian Bale rethink his career: “My heart wasn’t in it”
Christian Bale has breathed life into some of the most iconic characters in movie history. From taking on the role of narcissistic serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho to portraying the valiant Batman in Christopher Nolan’s game-changing trilogy, Bale has spent his last 40 years in the business demonstrating infinite range.
Though he’s come to be known as a formidable leading man, Bale found his breakthrough performance in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun at just 13 years old. The film catapulted Bale to success. Rather than finding his newfound fame exciting, however, the young actor was overwhelmed by responsibility and began rethinking his career choices.
Bale explained how he was feeling at the time in an interview with The Talks, suggesting that rather than the film enhancing his desire to act, working with Spielberg “reversed that. He made me think, ‘I don’t ever want to do this again’.” The problem wasn’t working with the beloved director personally – Bale recalls having a “wonderful time” with him, but, on reflection, thought that he was too young to take it all on: “The experience of doing it at that age is not something I’d recommend it for anybody.”
Bale still seems to maintain this viewpoint for other budding actors, stating, “You’re a teenager. You should be completely anonymous. I think it’s not really great for kids to go unto such an adult profession at such a young age. It doesn’t matter how much you look at it as enjoyment, you’ll end up with responsibilities that you ideally shouldn’t have at that age.”
Taking on those responsibilities made Bale rethink his plans to act: “So that experience actually made me kind of think I did not want to be an actor,” he said. “I didn’t really fully come back around until quite a few years later. I sort of dabbled, I did parts here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it for quite a long time after that.” Following the success of Empire of the Sun, Bale only got back into acting after Kenneth Branagh offered him a role in his film adaptation of Henry V.
Bale cites the “rollercoaster ride of doing something creative” as propelling his continued interest in acting. He said: “When it goes well and you enjoy the process, then it’s a high, and you just want to keep doing it.” The alternative, he suggests, is when it’s “just not satisfying at all, and you’re just not working well with all the people that you’re with – that just makes you want to finish it and go find something else to do.”
Luckily, Bale’s career seems to have been dominated by the former. Working with Adam McKay across The Big Short and Vice and Nolan as the Dark Knight, Bale refound his enjoyment in acting, discovered the people he worked best with and firmly strapped himself into the rollercoaster of creativity.
