Christian Bale acts like he got drunk before the interviewer got there, for an unintentionally hilarious interview with Esquire magazine. Bale covers the December 2010 issue of Esquire, for a movie I’d seen the trailer for and then forgotten about, The Fighter. The movie, starring Bale and Mark Wahlberg, is a subject about which Bale seems keen to discuss. In a write-up that spans five pages online, but is well worth reading while stoned (it helps), Bale keeps asking to give parts of the interview in character as ‘Dickie’ and talk about his experiences getting into character; though, he adds, he doesn’t like to become lost in a role and acts butthurt at being labelled a ‘method actor’. This interview really had me laughing out loud, an alarming amount. Considering that I almost never laugh out loud at anything. I really don’t. I read this stuff all day, every day, and become so numb to it all; very little makes me giggle. But this did. It’s a battle of dry wit and will, between Bale and the unfathomably persistent interviewer, John H. Richardson; someone who answers Bale’s incessant, petulant questions with more questions, or the word ‘Why?’, before calling him on his bulls**t and leaving it at that. The beginning of the interview can be summed up with Bale asking, ‘Are you calling me a liar? Am I lying?’ during one exchange about how good films become successes off their own backs without the help of marketing and shilling. The middle is summed up by Bale whining that his Tom Cruise-esque insistence on Q&A formatting for the interview doesn’t make him a patronising, controlling stereotype. The very end would have been less effort had Bale exposed and shaken his privates rather than expressed the same feelings by saying, ‘You know the reason I picked this place?’ Esquire asks why. ‘Cause it has nothing to do with my life. I never come here, ever. It’s as far removed from any place that I would ever go to. And that’s exactly why I chose it.’ Some highlights from the interview and photos are below. The excerpts don’t give the full affect of the more strained parts of the conversation, though.
