I risk treading somewhat into gossip territory here for a couple of reasons. First, because the last time I wrote a story about Christian Bale's behavior - or alleged behavior - it sparked off a firestorm in the comments threads and firestorms - at least ones as well behaved as this one generally was - can be both entertaining and productive. Second, because when I wrote that last piece - it was about Bale's arrest over an alleged assault on his mother and sister - a healthy percentage of the comments generally went something like, "How could you suggest such a good actor could do something like that?" And my answer is that being good in one area of your life does not preclude you from being kind of a dick in other areas of your life. Case in point:
Right around the same time that the assault allegations arose there was another Christian Bale misbehavior story that generally got overlooked because of all the attention paid to the assault story, this one revolving around the star throwing a tantrum on the set of Terminator Salvation, angered by the Director of Photography walking through his line of sight to check on the lighting of a scene. Well, turns out that as part of that tantrum - and there really is no other word for it - Bale threatened to walk off of the film if the DOP was not fired and that threat led to a recording of the tirade being filed with the film's insurance agent on the chance that Bale made good on his threat and actually walked. And now that tape has gotten out into the public. And can be heard here.
My question is this: Why on earth do we put up with this sort of behavior from stars? Any other job and Bale would have been given his walking papers before he got even a quarter of the way through this profanity laden explosion but we almost seem to prize this sort of behavior from artists and the like. Seriously, someone needs to tell Christian to chill out.
What a crazed and berserk rant – he has no room to talk about being unprofessional and immature
I thought it would be a funny "haha, what a diva" moments for Bale, but his behaviour really churned the pit of my stomach. Ugh.
OK I love cinema, but in what crazed messed up world does Bale (who is massively over-rated) think that his acting is sooooooo important that he has the right to abuse someone like that?
I mean really, Bale ain't very good. Heath Ledger made him look like the b-grade hack that he is in The Dark Knight. He got most of his acliam for losing lots of weight for The Machinist, which was D to the U to the L to the L!
Over
Damn.
Stuck at work, can't listen!
Must check this out later!
It always sucks to have your perception of someone dashed against the rocks but you kinda can't help it.
Actors are idiots and I'm glad to jump into the Joss Whedon basket of 'If the people aren't neat and family-like, don't hire 'em...no matter how big. Films are too tough to waste time with people who aren't interested in having fun'
Honestly, I am not that big of a Christian Bale fan and think he typically overacts but I get sick of people attacking idiots or claiming their job is easy. Acting is hard work, and it may not be digging ditches hard but it requires a great deal of concentration.
If they were in the middle of a scene and the guy kept walking through it, he deserved it and a lot more. And in the case of the mother and sister, it sounds like he was being blackmailed by family.
Though I am going to side with him on this one, I thank you for posting it because I enjoyed it more than any of his performances.
With the pressure of being a lead and being a passionately committed actor (as Bale appears to be), it's hard to judge how much of a overreaction this was from Bale if the DP actually was walking on to the set in the middle of a scene. Even through all the verbal abuse, Bale seemed to be saying "I want this to be good and I can't give you my 100% with this going on".
Now, if this were about the arrangement of the kiwi platter in his trailer, I'd call this through and through star tantrum abuse... As it is, I could see calling it mildly constructive through and through star tantrum abuse.
All this is another proof Terminator will suck. It maybe started nice, because it was one of the first trailers to be released, but with every day we see more images from the set, concept art, and now this. And they all look bad.
It maybe some trick to raise attention again, attention that went entirely to Transformers, Star Trek and a little to GI Joe, but no attention will hide the truth - Mc G sucks, doesn't matter how many experience he has.
And Terminator will suck too, this is inevitable. It will not flop, but wait for the release - and the shit storm will hit the fan.
i suppose everyone has their bad days. maybe he just got mad at something else and this guy just tipped him over the edge and he just couldn't handle it. haha the recording is pretty funny though... to hear him just freaking out.
I have hope.
I cut him some slack. He's the one everyone is looking at on screen & he has to do a good job or it could be his last. Some ADD ridden DP dancing around the set could be distracting. I'm sure this outburst wasn't the first time he mentioned it to the guy.
If he was going to kick the DP's ass I wonder what's he gonna do to the sound recordist??? :-)))
Funny how one isolated incident where he was in the wrong and all of a sudden, he's a terrible and/or overrated actor. What a joke. I'm sure most of you thought he was great in several movies but this happens and everyone jumps off the bandwagon. I mean, it's all about separating the actor from his real life personality, right? So, if he's a jerk in real life, it doesn't make him a bad actor. By the way, the reason why I took issue with Todd Brown's initial thoughts on the other incident with his family, is because he jumped to conclusions by calling him a prick without actually knowing the FULL story, first. It felt like it came out of left field to read Todd go off on Christian like that, as if he personally saw that incident before his eyes. Of course, this incident makes it clear that Christian was in the wrong. It's outbursts like this that turned me off from ever wanting to be a filmmaker. And there are MANY actors who behave like this...and I know as I've worked on sets before as a wrangler. Still, this link implies that Christian made amends with the DP and I hope that's true:
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/christian-bale-being-a-prick-to-a-dp/
I might be playing devil's advocate here,
but it is a bit unfair for an actor, who is amped up and prepared for a scene (like Christian sounds to be), to have to be halted because of someone walking in and ruining the scene. All the emotion and work of delivering a shot, with all the lights, people staring at you, continuity, key grips, blah blah blah, has to be reset. He's a human and not a machine (no pun intended). It's hard to bring yourself back to that place.
In the audio, Christian admits that the DP is a nice guy, but unprofessional.
Is this that firestorm Todd was talking about?
While I don´t really know Mr. Bale, and maybe he was right about this (which I don´t think), I find interesting that people try to justify his behaviour.
I just think he is not a nice guy. Simple as that. Many other actors are living the same situation daily: lights and eyes on you, crew working around you, noise, etc etc and they remain nice people. This is part of the job, or whas he really thinking that working on Terminator film would be just the best situation for him to create an unique and special character performance based on introspection and solitude? Working on a nosiy film set of this nature is why they call it "work" and not "holiday in the beach". So it is all about the personality.
I have lived the experience or being in a set with this kind of guy a few times. Everybody is afraid of making a mistake with him/her, of getting him/her angry etc etc... This is really a pain in the ass situation to work in and nobody enjoys it. Makes everything difficult and fake.
I don´t think he is nice guy, that is all. And I can´t see why is hard to admit it that maybe he is just that, a not nice guy, specially since we have already heard this kind of things from him before. It does not have much to do with him being good or bad actor. I think that he, like any other actor actually, is able to give good performances or bad.
@momodotcom: When he says someone is a nice guy, I believe he is referring to the AD who it appears stepped in to make peace. You can figure out who is who if you check the names with IMDB.
I can see both sides. Maybe it was the umpteenth take. Maybe Bale was wet and soaking and cold. So if the DoP started fiddling as Bale was trying to work up to a scene -- or worse -- was actually fiddling behind Bryce Dallas Howard during a take, then there might be some justification at blowing his top. But it is not Bale's place to fire anyone or to abuse someone in front of the whole crew. That's the director's job ;)
Everybody is entitled to some mistakes. If the actors wouldn't make any mistakes, they would always just need one single take. Of course being an actor is hard, but it's their job and their choice and actors have no right to be some damn SOBs. Nobody is perfect, especially overpayed whiny mediocre actors.
I'm sleepy. Why does it say my posting is at 3am? Its not 3am here.
The reaction to this recording is just another example of how star struck you all are.
(the entire internet apparently).
"The reaction to this recording is just another example of how star struck you all are.
(the entire internet apparently)."
....and yet you took the time to read the article,check out the readers comments, and add a comment. Admit it, you are one of us.....and you love it!
His tantrum is completely un-called for, as far as I can tell from the recording the DP (from behind the camera) was doing his job adjusting a light and Bale just blew up. If that was all he was doing then Bale was completely out of line. It isn't like everyone just freezes during shooting just for the actor to keep their concentration, people are moving around all the time (boom operators, camera men, effects guys). Completely unprofessional and out of line.
Well, he gets immensely pissed that's for sure.
Maybe he was amped for a action scene or something? If the scene is ruined several times thanks to someone when you're in that state of mind I can sorta understand getting pissed.
But he did curse a lot more than I do when arguing with people. Then again he's an actor, so being emotional is probably not a bad thing.
Also: Imagine that's it's Keanu Reeves shouting at someone. It sorta clashes in your head, doesn't it?
Did he called the DOP Bruce? If he did then he must've been fired because the DOP's name is Shane Hurlbut, for now :)
One of my regular customers was in the shop yesterday and we always talk about film because he does post production work and I do what I do here. He went through film school and then one of the key film institutions in Canada and was working towards becoming a camaraman but dropped everything for post due to the sheer amount of abuse and power trips that take place on set. Opted out for that for post prod which is much calmer and nicer. Less swearing.
Bad day or meltdown - everyone can understand, especially on the film set, which is not very easy environment at all, I know by myself. But in such case everything was suppose to be over after 10-20 seconds. This is what's called "releasing the steam". But he goes on and on for too long. At some point he seems to cool down, and then he just starts again.
Now this is not releasing the steam, this is going berserk. And all this talk about breaking the lights? This is deliberately being an asshole, a putz. A normal person would curse and yell for couple of seconds, and after that will feel a shame, he will feel uncomfortable with himself. Not Bale. That was not a normal respond, doesn't matter how many times he done it before.
In the right or in the wrong, Bale just planted himself firmly in the catagory of "ASSWAD"
Visitor:
That's a bit of a false start. The DP apologized many times to Bale. The issues at stake isn't the apology because clearly the DP was doing his best to defend himself, not to antagonize Bale. I can only imagine that in your situation the ticketing woman was being rude to you before you were rude to her so the situations are different. The DP was just doing his job and made a mistake, a big one admittedly, but not one that warrants such a puffed-up hissy fit or a prima donna ultimatum. Calling him on unprofessionalism is laughable when Bale was the epitome of childishness for ranting, raving and exclaiming that he doesn't need to cool off, that he's done workign with the DP, etc. When you do that for more than a few seconds, you go from being relatablly stressed to being unrepentantly egomaniacal.
Also: Swarez--I really don't think he was thinking of the people, the movie or the money that depend on his performance in that scene.
wow. you people would feel right at home on entertainment online or aintitcools. more gossip for the masses !!!! more speculations and wild guesses ! less real info about movies. we need polls about acceptable languague on moviesets and preferred cup sizes for actresses. that would be ace.
Ha ha, I was just going to say Anton. For an article that many people would cite as being tabloid material and not belong on this site there sure are allot of people who have an opinion about it.
I just had to add this: maybe there was a reason Plato expelled the actors from his republic...
here come the remixes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTihsJQHt48
We put the 'T' in TMZ, baby ...
It's ironic in what he's saying. That is the absolute last thing you do on a film set and is to that extent, unprofessional. Sure the DP may have been messing up shots. That is very amature. But he can't really pull that card out of the deck, expecially when he is clearly wasting production time. Mc G (hate saying that name) is a bad director for letting that happen. Same to the producer. He loses the respect and confidence of the crew by acting like that, and if his life is that chaotic, the he's in the wrong business.
Ipso Facto.
I'm a film student, currently cutting my teeth on micro-budget sets and that attitude doesn't fly, millionaire or not.
I think overall the biggest issue to be found on this recording is a lack of the director taking control of the situation and his set and defusing the issue.
This "news" is old as hell, I heard about not long after it happened. but since TMZ reports on it, it must be BIG news.
Bale is an actor, an actor who takes his job seriously, unlike the DP.
I'd scream at that douche too, he didn't notice they were filming a scene?
The director probably didn't step in because he agreed with Bale, and everyone who is acting like this even matters is a fucktard.
Including the writer of this article.
"My question is this: Why on earth do we put up with this sort of behavior from stars? Any other job and Bale would have been given his walking papers before he got even a quarter of the way through this profanity laden explosion but we almost seem to prize this sort of behavior from artists and the like. Seriously, someone needs to tell Christian to chill out."
My Question is this : Who cares what you think?
We put up with this behavior from stars because they work with unprofessional hacks.
Think about something before you write an asinine article, instead of hopping on board with all the other tarded folk on the internet.
Welcome to the chat, Mr. Bale.
Have you heard the reaction to the Christian Bale f-bomb incident? Check it out here.
http://thefilmnest.com/2009/02/berated-christian-bale-target-responds-with-words/
Enjoy.
The Rake
don't know if anyone still remembers, but Bale also blew up during Rescue Dawn. in Herzog's own words, Bale didn't know he only had to put like two worms in his mouth, but kept munching more and more of them before Herzog yelled cut. when Bale realised it, he was furious. but since Herzog could laugh about it later, i guess it wasn't as bad as what Mr Hurlbut got. but then again, we're talking about Werner Herzog, the guy who faced down the barrel of Kinski's gun.
OK, i think i've had enough fun out of this whole thing on an otherwise rather boring day today. goodnight!
I could care less, just make the movie and I'll be happy, behind the scenes is your personal business...
@Rake: You've got your facts mixed up a bit there. While Bruce was the one that stood up for Bale, Shane Hurlbut was the one who was the target of Bale's tirade.
@Chevalier: While admittedly this doesn't amount to much more than your standard movie gossip, there are plenty of us that enjoy more than just watching movies. If that's all you're interested in, far be it from me to take that from you. However, I don't think the average convention- or festival-attending film fan would agree. For one, I'm also fascinated with the process, what the actors, directors, producers, and crew go through in order to create the film. I'd love to be involved in the business someday, and more experience with what it's like behind the scenes is always a good thing. A story like this piques a lot of people's interest and is a good opportunity to analyze what actions should be tolerated and how actors should be treated. Whether that question matters to you or not is your own decision, but as you wrote, a lot do care. And to those of you comparing these comments to the sites you love to hate, I think the comments here have been much more constructive than those I see elsewhere, or at least would have to dig to find.
It's juicy and interesting, no one is saying this is major news, or important news. So getting all self righteous and saying "who cares? you people are petty, etc etc." is really self defeating because obviously it interests you.
And many of us here work in film, the reason why I come to Twitch and will post here and avoid aintitcool is because their boards are 99.% percent asshole nerd flamers.
Twitch attracts independent film makers and artists, and for us, you can't seperate the product from the process since we're actively involved in that process.
Again, this tyrade reminded me of certain instances working on films where so many actors and crew are abusing drugs (how else do you think people work 18 hour days, 6 days a week for six months at a time?).
So yeah, you're better a man for stating that you don't care and this is
all stupid and TMZ like (I don't think it is).
This isn't a story about an actor's personal life, twitch has never posted anything about who's sleeping with who, who did what when they were drunk.
This is about set conduct and totally fair game. Chris isn't just yelling, he's threatening with physical violence, and he can hear him moving around and being held back.
Movie lovers love talking about the act of making movies, I'm sure you have favorite stories of crazy things Fellini, or Hitchcoch did, and a lot of it is eually unacceptable. I for one think Kubrick is an asshole and I would never want to work for him and my experiences on American Gangster was fairly positive, after watching the Doc on Blade Runner, I'm sure I would have hated working for Ridley 20 years ago.
and we can probably look forward to many "audio collage" of his tirade on youtube, purdy soon.
Yeah, and?
Are you all little angels living in Wonderland? Don't you guys get angry once in a while? say a few bad words? He's having a little Klaus Kinski moment. It's not a big deal.
Todd: If I would hunt you 24/24, with a camcorder or a tape recorder, I'm sure I could make you look like a total freak. And that's true for all of us. We have here a 3 minutes recording of Christian Bale shouting at someone (for maybe good reasons). It's only 3 minutes. That's nothing. I'm behaving like an ass**** 1% of the time as well.
And, you know, it's not relevant. It's just noisy egos. That's what movies are made of! That's what we want. We want something unique, intense, over-the-top. And it can only come from very strong personalities. Masterpieces like "Blade Runner", "The Exorcist", "Apocalypse Now" or "The Shining" were not done by angels living in wonderland!
Don't forget "Jaws".
When that shoot got extended, and extended, and extended, tensions on the set rose to the point were there seriously was a conspiracy to forcibly drown Steven Spielberg and make it look like an accident...
No slack should be cut for this psycho. He needs counseling badly.
Honestly, if you can't get angry about what you do, it means you don't care about what you do.
Which is fatal in a creative industry.
I'm more worried about how terrified of conflict so many people here seem to be. Herzog can laugh about it so it must not have been so bad? For all we know, the people involved here can laugh about it, or could until the story got out of hand. For all we know, the blow-up on the Herzog set was way worse and Herzog just isn't such an emotionally fragile man-child he bothered holding a grudge.
Herzog is the coolest, most badass director working today.
i mean, if he could continue with an interview even after getting shot by a sniper, surely an actor's blow-up would be like an ant-bite for him.
Maybe i didn't put my last post in the best words. Of course i love knowing about the creative process that goes for making a movie. From the camera placement, directiorial decisions, actors and so on. In the case of this piece of news i just feel it's more tabloid bait than anything else. That said, if we keep reading about Bale going berserk in future productions then yeah, there will certainly be a point to make about him being of very short temper.
What a dick ..
Christian Bale apologizes and explains:
http://kroq-data.com/wah/wah/audio/defaultkbsounds.aspx?a=1129&c=4&k=
I think this non-story can now be put to rest. It would be nice if Twitch posted an entry about the apology to follow-up on the original post.
Thank you very much for posting that, much appreciated.