Christian Bale

by Harrison Cheung

  “Why,” I asked him, “don’t you go to a professional photographer? It’s like $150 and you’ll get your headshot.” I was complaining as we snapped photos outdoors in the heat since we didn’t have a studio or lights for a photo shoot.

  Christian gave me an icy stare and replied, “Because you’ll do what I say.” This shift in his personality was unsettling and somewhat frightening.

  By the time I had mustered the courage to ask Christian again about a salary for me, he had begrudgingly agreed to add me to his film contracts—so that for the couple months he was shooting a film, I’d be paid a small wage from the production company itself. Outside of the shooting period, we would still need to figure out a fair salary that he would pay me directly.

  When a fan letter showed up at Christian’s Manhattan Beach home address, he was livid and blasted a scathing fax to me.

  This letter was sent to 3101—something that makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons—especially when it’s someone who is on the Internet regularly.

  We’ve got her address. I think we should eliminate her. Better to be safe than sorry. A screwdriver thrust thru the eyeball into the brain prevents any screaming.

  Let me know how it goes.

  Yours,

  Christian

  Clearly, Christian’s relationship with his fans was changing, and not for the better. When he had first moved to America, at the rare times he was recognized, it was for high praise for his performance in Empire of the Sun. But the Newsies phenomenon meant that Christian had become a teen idol and the object of the Internet. It was his first taste of American-style celebrity and he alternated between enjoying its benefits and chafing at its burden.

  Pity the fan who recognized Christian at a restaurant. He refused to sign autographs while he was seated. He would lecture little girls about being rude and intrusive until tears streamed down their faces, and their parents tugged them away from our table.

  On June 22, 2001, after much mulling over the graphic novels I had sent him back when he was in Ireland, Christian decided he wanted to pursue Batman. He e-mailed me the go-ahead to launch an Internet campaign to convince the important and opinionated Batman fandom that Christian would be a great choice for the Caped Crusader. We ignited the powerful Balehead community with leaked photos of Christian from Equilibrium, which would not be theatrically released until December 2002. Bruce Wayne? Here’s Christian in a tuxedo from American Psycho. Action hero? Here’s Christian in various martial arts poses from Equilibrium. Conversations were seeded and started in Batman-related chat rooms and message boards, and soon there were fan-generated posters of Batman with Christian’s face superimposed all over the Internet.

  Christian’s Balehead fan base had grown to encompass sci-fi fans who had enjoyed Christian’s work in Reign of Fire and Equilibrium as well as longtime fans from the days of Newsies, Little Women, and Empire of the Sun. In 2002 we aggressively built a sci-fi fan base. By the summer of 2002, media outlets around the world were covering the Internet buzz that Christian was in the lead to be considered for Batman.

  He and Sibi moved out of the Manhattan Beach house on August 31, 2001, leaving 3101 Oak Avenue to David as his financial responsibility. They bought a little house in Santa Monica, near the Santa Monica Stairs. He was thrilled to have his own place.

  “You know,” he told me, “this is the first time I’ll have a house of my own. Without Dad living off me.” A biting remark that highlighted just how far the two Bale men had fallen out.

  In March 2002, when Christian’s mother, Jenny, brought his grandmother over from Bournemouth to Los Angeles for her very first trip abroad, he refused to see them. During their stay, I gave Jenny and her mother the VIP treatment with a tour of Paramount Pictures. They were all thrilled to meet Christian Bale’s mother and grandmother and Jenny was delighted to be treated with such respect, as if she were a visiting dignitary.

  But the visit turned sour very quickly. David and Gloria were in New York at the time and naturally did not want Jenny and her mother entering the vacant Manhattan Beach house. Christian and Sibi had just moved into their new home in Santa Monica, so Jenny was surprised to find herself staying with Louise and her husband in their tiny little house in Culver City.

  After days turned into weeks, Jenny and her mother were about to return to England with no word from Jenny’s son. As luck would have it, I arrived at Louise’s house when Jenny was crying on the phone, asking Christian to see them—if not for her sake, then for his grandmother’s first visit to the U.S. He refused.

  It was around this time that Christian’s temper was becoming well known throughout the industry. His dislike of publicity, his avoidance of Hollywood scenes—all would come together when he was invited to appear on the cornerstone TV show of the entertainment industry, The Tonight Show. Reign of Fire’s opening weekend was set for July 12, 2002, and Touchstone’s publicity department had scored a major coup: Christian was set to be a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the prestigious and highly rated Friday-night slot.

  Ever since it debuted on NBC in 1954, The Tonight Show has been the launching pad for many an actor, comic, and musician’s livelihood. For Christian, who had done precious few American talk shows in the past, to land a lead guest spot on a Friday night was very important to his career.

  Christian’s new stepmother, Gloria Steinem, insinuated that it was she who had helped get Christian the Friday guest slot. She was friends with Leno’s wife, Mavis.

  Christian and Sibi were in New York at the time when I told him the good news. I impressed on him how important The Tonight Show would be to his career.

  Like most major American network talk shows, Christian would be pre-interviewed by a producer so that the host could develop his talking points. Christian was annoyed at this concept.

  “I’ve done chat shows in England and there’s no such thing as a pre-interview,” he seethed.

  On Monday, July 8, Christian had his first phone interview with The Tonight Show producer. Christian called me immediately afterward and complained that the producer was rude to him.

  “I’m sure it was a misunderstanding. Don’t worry about it. Just think about chatting with Jay Leno,” I tried to assure him.

  Meanwhile, the folks at NBC were trying to arrange Christian’s flight from New York to Los Angeles. It was standard Tonight Show policy to fly guests in at least the day before, just in case of flight delays. For some reason, this, too, offended Christian.

  “I have no intention of cutting short my New York trip. I’m flying back Thursday night,” he snapped.

  During the week, The Tonight Show producers asked for clips from Reign of Fire and sent me additional questionnaires to prepare Leno for Friday night. Christian, the producers were telling me, was being very difficult. Touchstone was eager for Christian to promote the movie as poor advanced reviews for Reign of Fire started coming in the same week. As a summer popcorn movie, Reign of Fire needed to open at the top of the box office.

  On Thursday night, Christian called and told me he was not going to appear on The Tonight Show. To make matters worse, he instructed me not to notify NBC until Friday morning—well past their point of last return to be able to schedule another guest. Christian figured that the producer who had interviewed him would be blamed and fired.

  I warned Christian that he could be banned from The Tonight Show, but he didn’t care. He wanted to punish this producer and figured his absence would do just that.

  I contacted Christian’s agent immediately, hoping that he could talk some sense in him. But neither of us could change his mind. Friday morning, the conversations with The Tonight Show producers were terse but professional. They were not going to beg or plead. Throughout Friday, NBC stations were running promotions for The Tonight Show, announcing that the guests would be Christian Bale and Kylie Minogue. Christian’s fans were abuzz on the Internet, talking about Christian’s first appearance on a major U.S. talk show. They wanted to know wha
t his real accent sounded like and what he’d wear and if he’d give a shout-out to anyone.

  But the fans never got the chance to see him, and Christian’s stubborn move didn’t help Reign of Fire’s fortunes.

  Reign of Fire opened in third place that weekend, behind Men in Black II and Road to Perdition and became the latest in Christian’s string of box office misfires.

  To cap off a year of mood swings, I got the weirdest Christmas card from Christian. He wrote:

  Harrison

  With eternal gratitude for all you’ve done.

  Remember Jesus died for all of us.

  Except for you.

  You’re a cunt.

  Christian

  [11]

  An Apple a Day Keeps

  the Doctor Away

  “I always like to immerse myself as deeply as possible in the characters I play but I probably didn’t need to go to such extremes with the whole weight loss thing.”

  —Christian Bale

  Christian was depressed. Not “regular human being” depressed, but Christian Bale depressed, which meant that he was barricaded in his fortress of solitude (yes, I know, wrong superhero). He was sitting at home staring at the four walls day in, day out. His last three movies—Reign of Fire, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and Equilibrium—had failed to set the box office alight and he hadn’t been on a movie set in nearly eighteen months. Even though Christian Bale was not a box office name, at least he used to merit good reviews from the film critics, but those kinds of accolades were few and far between for his last films.

  Deep down, he honestly believed he was an actor who was washed up at the age of twenty-eight because of the bad choices he had made. Both Christian and David had fully expected him to be the next big thing in Hollywood after American Psycho but it just hadn’t happened. Of course, David blamed Christian’s new agent at CAA for choosing the bad projects. He would never criticize Christian directly.

  “Why,” David asked, “is my son getting scripts that have been wisely turned down by everyone else?” Naturally, David thought Christian was irreproachable.

  Christian’s proclivity to shun the limelight and pick smaller, edgier roles had paid off—but not in the way he wanted.

  He wasn’t splashed all over the pages of the latest celebrity magazines nor was he a household name like DiCaprio or Nicolas Cage. Instead he was known in Hollywood as a risk taker but not someone who could open a blockbuster movie. Christian saw himself differently—as someone who wasn’t a sellout for his art—but it was all starting to catch up with him.

  Unlike many stars who team up with directors again and again—Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, and Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott—at this point in his career, Christian had never worked with the same director twice. Ever since Empire of the Sun back in 1987, there was a logical expectation that Christian would reteam with the legendary Steven Spielberg, but Christian’s odd speech at the AFI Tribute to Spielberg back in 1995 was rumored to have damaged their relationship. David’s heavy-handed Spielberg name-dropping around town didn’t help.

  A few years earlier, David revealed to me that Spielberg had asked Christian to do a cameo in Schindler’s List. Christian refused. It was the scene where a young German soldier stops to play the piano while the Jewish Ghetto in Krakow is being raided. Spielberg had wanted Christian as the German soldier. “Not only was it a request from Steven,” David sighed at the time, “but Steven’s people thought it would be a wonderful reference to Swing Kids. What happened to Christian’s character, Thomas, once the War started? Of course he’d be old enough to join the army.”

  It looked like 2002 would be another rough year for Christian; he was having trouble getting anyone interested in having him in their movie. It seemed that the momentum Christian had built after American Psycho was petering out with each successive failure. But his passion and interest in moviemaking came back when a little script called The Machinist dropped in his lap. Christian loved the script and immediately knew he wanted to play the role of insomniac Trevor Reznik.

  A few years earlier, I had seen an incredible horror movie called Session 9 and begged Christian to watch it. But he refused to see it at first because it starred Josh Lucas. Handsome Lucas had previously costarred in American Psycho with Christian; Christian had instantly disliked him, mostly for his ambition. Lucas remained friendly with me after the movie, but when we bumped into each other at the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere, Christian lost his temper and warned me not to talk to Lucas. It would not be the first time Christian would get incredibly possessive, but this was a particularly volatile exchange. Before American Psycho, we could argue as friends, as equals. But Christian’s attitude toward me was becoming more “master and servant.” I was looking for new paying Internet marketing clients, while Christian expected utter and complete loyalty to him even though he was still not paying me for my work as his publicist, assistant, and Internet marketer.

  American Psycho’s premiere at Sundance was Christian’s opportunity in the limelight and he was very annoyed that Lucas had even showed up. In Christian’s mind, Lucas was stealing his thunder as he hung around our hotel suite to participate in press interviews. I thought the more the merrier. If reporters knew they could talk to a couple stars from the movie, it’d make our suite a better prospect to get editorial coverage. But Christian was so upset with Lucas that he made him sit out in the hallway.

  For this simple reason, Christian initially refused to watch Session 9—until he realized its director was Brad Anderson, whom he needed to win over to get the part in The Machinist. Christian quickly put all his reservations behind him and we rented Session 9 for movie night. (If you’ve never seen Session 9, watch this movie with all the lights out. I’m very jumpy when it comes to horror movies, and to Christian’s amusement, I jumped into the air when he let out a fart during the movie.) He soon decided to meet with Anderson after agreeing the movie was great.

  Written by Scott Kosar, The Machinist is the story of Trevor Reznik, a factory worker who hasn’t slept in a year. He thinks he is losing his mind when he begins seeing hallucinations and his perception of reality becomes twisted. He’s haunted by a coworker who no one else can see, and he keeps finding Post-it notes with secret messages on his fridge, which could be a mysterious plot against him—eerily similar to the way Christian’s dad used to communicate with him.

  The character’s name was an homage to Trent Reznor, lead singer of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Brad Anderson told a reporter: “The original script had a quote from some Trent Reznor song at the beginning. I think Scott always envisioned the film as more industrial and maybe Nine Inch Nails would actually do the soundtrack.”

  Christian knew immediately he wanted the part. He became obsessed with Reznik and even began having strange dreams about the character.

  Christian revealed: “I spent weeks staring at the wall in my house out of depression because of things that had gone wrong and the choices I had made. When I read The Machinist, I just went: ‘Wow! This is perfect.’ I was having dreams about the character and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I felt like this one was going to save my arse and pull me out of the depressed state I had got into.”

  But despite wanting the role there was no guarantee that Christian would get it. He would have to work hard to impress director Brad Anderson—someone whose movies he had previously refused to watch.

  Christian faced a huge challenge. Because the character Reznik had not slept for a year, he looked ill and underweight, his every waking minute an unremitting nightmare of confusion, paranoia, guilt, and anxiety. Christian needed to lose weight for the role. Not a problem. From as early as 1987’s Empire of the Sun when he lost weight for Spielberg to portray a concentration camp prisoner, Christian was renowned in Hollywood for being able to transform himself for any role.

  But this time he took things to extremes. He lost a staggering 65 lbs., existing on jus
t water, an apple, and a cup of coffee a day with a glass of whiskey sometimes in the evening. He explained: “Firstly you just drink a lot of water because it makes you feel full. Then you do substitution when you feel hungry—go and read instead. Or draw. Things that kill time.”

  But Christian still found it tough being around food or watching anyone else eating. He revealed: “There’s an initial irritability because of the restraint you are putting on yourself. That’s very difficult because you’re still used to seeing friends for dinner and going out and everything being about food and drink. In the end I had to stop going out. I realized that wasn’t going to work. I’d do a bit of eating hardly anything and losing 5lbs and then I’d put on 7lbs bingeing one night because I’d have a couple of drinks. So I decided no more social life, no more friends, no more dinners, no more drinks. It got very hard so I just avoided everything. In fact, every time I smelled some great dish, I became this drooling beast that just wanted to eat everything I could get my hands on. So I couldn’t go out at all. My life was like that, pretty much, except for the smoking and some whiskey I had each night.”

  As Christian withdrew from the world and became more and more like his character Reznik, the process became easier for him. He added: “I guess it’s the stomach shrinking. Once I stopped running to lose weight, my legs got feeble—I just sat for hours without moving. I began to enjoy the mental state I was in because as my weight got lower the moods just disappeared. It does change you mentally and it did give me a noticeably different mental outlook on the world. I became very calm because you have no energy to deal with anything else except the basic necessities of life. Nothing made me anxious or upset. You couldn’t get me angry at all. I could just sit still for hours without moving a muscle. It did feel like some spiritual mission I was on.”

  Christian also refused pleas from Sibi, David, and me to let a doctor monitor his crash diet, choosing instead to dose himself with vitamins. “I always felt in control. Anyway, what doctor’s going to tell me to keep going? I knew if I went to see one I would be scared into not going as far as I wanted. I knew I looked skinny and it was a weird feeling because you’re disconnecting from this thing down below you. But I knew I could stop whenever I wanted.”