Christian Bale Quotes

I think the harder the shoot, the more I feel like I'm enjoying myself.

Certainly I have no attraction to misery. I don't intentionally go for dark.

Any planning that I have in my career is totally accidental really.

All I've ever ended up with in terms of achievements is the movie, some really stupid anecdotes, a bunch of crosswords that I didn't finish and maybe some old bicycle that I found lying around on set.

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?"

No, only disappointment in myself on those occasions I didn't manage to rise to the occasion as I felt I should've done. I can always see how to do it, and then the challenge is, Can I manage that each and every day?

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.

After the modest success of my first film, I found it very daunting to have to live with that kind of burden of expectations.

I want to do good work. I want the opportunity to work with good people, and the only way I'm gonna do that is to commit 110% - you get out what you put in.

There have been many times when you spend a number of months and the finished product is not what you wanted to see. And 'Batman Begins' was what I wanted to see.

I have a fear of being boring.

It's got to do with putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting.

I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.

I'll find myself having dinner with people and someone will mention something and I will say I was in that situation once. Then I'll say, forget it, it was a scene I was in. That can get to be quite confusing.

I always figure hey, look, I'm not a rock star, I'm an actor. I'm somebody who's meant to be other people and I'm not meant to be here representing myself. I'm happier when I'm presenting myself as other characters.

It was a great honor to be called a mo-fo by Sam Jackson.

I certainly liked performing [Patrick Bateman], but it was because he thinks he's so [bloody] cool and just the [stuff], but is really such a cheesy dork.

There's nothing like boxing for getting you in shape.

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.

All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You've said that you will commit to this part, and I just can't live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.

I always leave disaster for other people to decide, because some of the things I consider to be disasters are some people's favorite movies. And that's what I like so much, is that you never know. Something intrigues somebody and means nothing to somebody else.

I find what I do for a living really funny. I mean, acting is kind of a hilarious thing for a grown man to call a job.

If I'm not working, I really have nothing to do with it - I'm not hanging out and mixing with film people. Not that I have anything against film people; they're some of the best people around and some of the worst people around, just like in any business... they just gesticulate a little bit more.

I've always believed that the director does whatever the hell he wants. That's what you sign on for as an actor - I can't stand it when you have actors who are trying to leverage directors into doing things they don't want to do.

The art of survival is a story that never ends.

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.

People always say, "What do you want to do next, what kind of movie do you want to do next?" And I say, "I wanna do whatever script that is the best one that comes my way." I certainly would never say, "Oh, I'm gonna do a Western next," and sit around waitin' for a Western to come along when there's some other genre's brilliant script sitting right there.

I never applied to any acting schools. I don't know if that's just bad reporting, or - sometimes I just make stuff up.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

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.

I do like taking stuff seriously that a lot of people look at as nonsense. I enjoy the insanity of that. And I like the commitment that is needed for that.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest.

Whatever you do, do it completely. Don't do it half-arsed. Do it more than anybody else would.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

My dad was the biggest influence on my life because he was never boring.

An actor should never be larger than the film he's in.

I'd love to remain a secret and still work, but I also want people to see the movies I'm in and get a higher profile because of that. I like to think that as long as you continue choosing diverse roles, you can avoid becoming predictable.

I would have been very happy just cruising around and enjoying the unexpected. I've never been ambitious.

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?"

You say something bad about Newsies and you have an awful lot of people to answer to.

I'm not an actor that tends to care. I don't ask "Is this a close up? Is this a master? Is this a wide? What are you doing?" If I look up and notice the camera I go "Oh, it's a big one today, must be an IMAX." And that's kinda it for me because it doesn't affect what I'm doing.

But I learned that there's a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there's not much else that can really get to ya.

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.

I always leave that for other people to decide, because some of the things I consider to be disasters are some people's favorite movies. And that's what I like so much, is that you never know. Something intrigues somebody and means nothing to somebody else.

The blue collar milieu was something that I really understood and resonated with me and I thought was underrepresented in American cinema.

I think it's important when you're acting to be as relaxed as possible even if you're doing something intense. You're basically in a state of dynamic relaxation.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

There are movies where actors aren't characters but movie stars, being cool beyond belief throughout the whole movie. That is what it is. And we reveal ourselves when we act, very often without noticing. But if I can manage to do a character without showing anything of myself, then that's the ultimate goal for me. No leakage.