Christian Bale Talks Public Enemies

Total Film spent some time with Christian Bale last month.

This week – to celebrate the new Bale and Terminator Salvation-packed issue hitting shelves 30 April – totalfilm.com has five exclusives from The Most In Demand Actor Right Now.

Today, he talks taking a break, mixing it up and Public Enemies…

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“Terminator’s coming out, then Public Enemies is coming out after that and then I’ll just wait and see for the first time ever. I kind of felt burnt out and just knowing that if I took on any movie right now I wouldn’t be able to commit myself properly.

“But variety is essential for me. I love watching a Michael Mann movie. I love watching a Chris Nolan movie. Just to talk about my stuff, I enjoy a Machinist kind of movie, a Rescue Dawn, a 3:10 To Yuma, an American Psycho, whatever. But I also love watching Terminator movies, I love watching the Batman movies...

“For me it’s less important that following the Terminator that I quickly get Public Enemies out there. I’m just not as strategic as that. But for my own personal satisfaction I need to vary it up. I couldn’t for instance follow up Terminator by doing another Terminator straight away…"[page-break]

"Public Enemies is very timely. The Depression had people resenting the fat cats, the banks and so you've got someone like Dillinger being a hero because he was making a difference - he was getting it back for himself and so many people looked at him and romanticised that.

“The movie follows some really young guys. I mean Dillinger died at 30. My character Purvis was head of the Chicago office at 27. Phenomenal. Hoover as well was in his 20s when he became the head of the FBI! It’s incredible. It’s crazy when you think about that. It’s just an amazing era of American history.

"The whole frigging thing happened in two years. Because there came to be this little window where automobiles became affordable and the Thompson submachinegun came out and these guys had a two-year window before the FBI got their act together..."

For Bale on That Outburst, check out totalfilm.com tomorrow...

And for plenty more where this came from, buy Issue 155 of Total Film, on sale 30 April.

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