Christian Bale
If something's true and sincere, it happens regardless of marketing. The more I talk about it, the more I'm telling people how they should react. And that is an asshole.Collection: People
If you're smart you're just gonna be all about the work. But as a young person, you want to going out to clubs and doing all the stuff. I'm just glad I survived it.Collection: Smart
Any planning that I have in my career is totally accidental really.Collection: Careers
I chose to tell a personal story. When you tell a movie like this that's as emotionally charged as this is, it's a risk. As one of my great cinematic heroes, Francis Coppola, would say, "If you aren't taking the highest, greatest risk, then why are you a filmmaker?"Collection: Hero
I know a lot of other actors that don't like to look at other references to their characters and things. But I like it. I always look at everything, I read all the books. I read Dieter's "Escape from Laos." I watched the documentary again and again and again. I recorded it just to listen to him a lot. I just don't suffer from feeling like I'm getting caught into an imitation. I just feel like I want to steal some good stuff if it's in there.Collection: Book
For me, I think the harder the shoot, the more I feel like I'm enjoying myself.Collection: Thinking
You have to make an effort to be in an unprotected environment because everyone thinks you're a completely incapable idiot who couldn't possibly brush his teeth without an assistant. You have to make an effort in order to be able to actually experience the country that you're in.Collection: Country
Directors go their whole career without being able to tell personal stories and to work with a cast as talented as they are.Collection: Careers
I won't kill you but I don't have to save you.Collection: Batman Movie
I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level.Collection: Talking
I don't ever really sit back and look at roles I've taken and look at any similarities.Collection: Taken
I never applied to any acting schools. I don't know if that's just bad reporting, or - sometimes I just make stuff up.Collection: School
It was always that I finished one movie and then had no idea what I was doing. I think there's a limited amount of planning you can do, at least in the position I'm in. Maybe more successful actors can plan more than I'm able to.Collection: Successful
I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, yes, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level. And then you go and have to deal with the financial level.Collection: People
I was born in Wales but I'm not Welsh - I'm English.Collection: Born
The blue collar milieu was something that I really understood and resonated with me and I thought was underrepresented in American cinema.Collection: Blue
Basically, it's somebody who got stuck having to interview me who really wants to be a novelist, so they're writing these novellas and I was like, "It's not true, that didn't happen, they just made all that up! Why don't they just go ahead and be a novelist instead of bothering with interviewing me?"Collection: Writing
It helps so much being on location. It's like the difference between performing for the rectangle of the camera versus a world being created and then the camera finds things within that. There's a huge difference in that, because what it takes away is performance. You don't feel like performing. You're just kind of doing it. You're existing.Collection: Differences
I think there's a limited amount of planning you can do, at least in the position I'm in. Maybe more successful actors can plan more than I'm able to.Collection: Successful
I seek … the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.Collection: Mean
After the modest success of my first film, I found it very daunting to have to live with that kind of burden of expectations.Collection: Expectations
Nuclear apocalypse-who do you need? Actors are probably not top of the list. What can I do for you? I can pretend to be somebody who can grow you some nice crops.Collection: Nice
I'm not really looking forward to wearing a black rubber suit in the summertime in humid Chicago. If you see a pool of sweat through the city, follow it and you will find me.Collection: Cities
As an actor, I don't feel like it's necessary to watch a great deal of films. In fact, I think it can lead to imitation and unhealthy competition, which just isn't needed.Collection: Thinking
I quite like it when you're working with people and you only get to know them through the scenes that you're doing together.Collection: People
There are movies that require fantasy and slightly more fantastical acting. Lines that are good for certain movies, in real life circumstances, would be absolutely unbelievable things to really say, and you would look at these people like they're freaks for conversing that way. But somehow for certain styles of movies, it works, and it seems fine.Collection: Real
Dieter Dengler was an amazing man. Who knows what he would've been had he not ever been tested in this way? It's a question that I certainly have myself. What would I be able to do in certain situations? He came out, obviously, looking like a true hero, but he didn't go in looking like that. He was not your typical image of somebody that you would think would be the tough guy who was able to endure. His lighthearted attitude, this sort of dorkiness, and naivete; it ended up being the finest tool for his survival.Collection: Attitude
It's tough to make a good movie. I think the bigger the movies are, the worse they are. A lot of big movies make a lot of money and you kind of forget about what they are and they don't really make you think.Collection: Thinking
Research can be interesting, but it can be pointless as well. The realities of making a movie often are not conducive with that. I'm not knocking it. I love doing research myself, but I admit it doesn't always add to the performance.Collection: Reality
I never try to guess what anyone else will take from a movie. Every movie is such a different experience for each and every person. I don't like it when people try telling people what they should take from a movie. You should go see it with fresh eyes and see for themselves.Collection: Eye
I don't like filmmakers to tell people how they should react to their movies. I absolutely have favorites, and I have others that I'm mortified by, but I keep that to myself. I think I've managed to find some very interesting things that I've been very satisfied with recently. I don't know if that's gonna keep going.Collection: Thinking
Planning a career, I always find a tricky thing, because I don't have much of a plan, really.Collection: Planning
I'm English. Our dentistry is not world famous. But I made sure I got moldings of my old teeth beforehand because I miss them.Collection: Missing
The risk element only came from acknowledging other people's attitudes toward it, and realizing that they considered it to be a risk for me to do.Collection: Attitude
When I imagined my life, I always thought I'd be in my mid-30s before I felt capable of marrying. But I suddenly found that I'd met somebody and I said, "Screw it. I'm not gonna sit here saying, 'Oh no, I'm not ready,' and regret not having done this later on and the possibility of not having this person around." I thought, I'll jump into it and we'll figure it out as we go along.Collection: Regret
There's a level of confidence in the actor you're working with that really helps a lot. It makes all the difference.Collection: Differences
Suddenly people were saying I was cocky because I'd done a Steven Spielberg movie and thought I was better than everyone else, which surprised me at first. I suddenly started feeling like a freak because everyone was treating me differently. It was confusing, and I did wonder if acting was for me anymore.Collection: Cocky
You get those occasional moments when you're absolutely calm, and you've just done something that would have scared you shitless earlier that day, and you've just done it like it was nothing. I find that very relaxing.Collection: Done
It was just the two of us, inside there with just mirrors, all the way around us. Everywhere we looked, there were these two freaks, sitting at a table, eyeballing each other.Collection: Mirrors
What I like about it is that I'm not somebody who's in movies. I'm a guy who's not very good going around the track with a bunch of guys who are a hell of a lot better.Collection: Track
When you do a lot of interviews, you find yourself telling the same stories over and over. After you do it for a whole day, you say, 'Christ, I've said this five times today.' It gets fun when you get so bored you start making it all up.Collection: Fun
I have a very sissy job, where I go to work and get my hair done, and people do my makeup, and I go and say lines and people spoil me rotten. And everyone has that kind of curiosity of how far can you go, how far can you take it. I think it's always good testing yourself.Collection: Jobs
I think the harder the shoot, the more I feel like I'm enjoying myself.Collection: Thinking
Being misunderstood is not a bad thing as an actor. I know the truth.Collection: Misunderstood
Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you're giving it up, you're at the mercy of so many other people.Collection: Art
Sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people have got to have their faith rewarded.Collection: Truth
If you're doing your job properly, you take the risk of feeling slightly foolish and delve in and bring out the emotions.Collection: Feelings
I feel like I'm pretty good but I don't like to toot my own horn, you know. I want to let the work speak for itself and kind of move on to the next thing.Collection: Moving
You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.Collection: Dog