Christian Bale Vowed to Never Work with This Director Again Despite His Pleas
It’s not often that a famous actor publicly claims he won’t work with a director ever again… What did McG do to deserve such phenomenal humiliation from Bale?
Christian Bale ’s name is a synonym for “brilliance.” The actor’s track record is nothing short of phenomenal and his dedication to the craft is undeniable: Bale is admittedly the most famous method actor in the world who’s ready to give up everything, including his mental and physical health, to deliver the perfect performance.
Typically, when you learn that Christian Bale is part of a project, you immediately expect nothing but sheer greatness from it. But despite his pristine reputation, sometimes, even the actor’s talent and effort are not enough to save a terrible movie. 2009’s Terminator Salvation was perhaps the brightest example of this.
Christian Bale shared his thoughts about the film on many occasions, and they generally sum up to the same issue: the script for the fourth Terminator installment, where Bale played John Connor, was simply “pathetic.”
“People said that I was unhappy with the original script. And I wasn’t the only one. Everybody was saying that there needed to be changes made to it. Connor was a character who appeared very, very briefly in the original [script]. Which I was happy to do if the story could become something worthy of reviving this mythology,” Bale explained.
The problem was, there was an ongoing writer’s strike in Hollywood back then, and there was next to no chance to work on the script further. Thankfully, the most unexpected person came to the rescue: Christopher Nolan ’s brother, Jonathan, who’s a professional screenwriter — and a great friend of Christian Bale, too.
“However, we had few writers because of the whole situation with the writer’s strike. But we were very lucky for the short time that my friend Jonathan Nolan came in [to help with the script],” explained the actor.
Still, despite Bale and Nolan’s best efforts, the movie fell flat, and Christian Bale promised himself to never work with director McG again. The director tried to mend the fence with him, but the actor was adamant. “I won’t be working with him again, but I wish him very well,” Christian Bale explicitly said.
Sources: MTV, Wall Street Journal