CHRISTIAN BALE

On slipping into the Batman suit for the last time.

Christian Bale as Batman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman

Was there any doubt in your mind about making another film with Christopher Nolan?

I knew it was going to happen for me because I was contracted to do this film. I had no choice, I would have been sued and be on the street and penniless if I hadn’t done it! Chris, my understanding was, could have chosen not to do it, but he had always talked about this as being a trilogy and he liked the challenge that an awful lot of movies fail on the third one. Most of the time that’s the tricky one to pull off. And I think he really likes the challenge of that.

Are you going to miss playing Batman after this?

Course I will, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Will you miss wearing the suit?

For all the discomfort and the heat and the sweat and the headaches and everything from it, when you sit back and watch the movie at the end of the day, you go: ‘Well, that’s f***ing cool.’ I will miss that, I liked the good bit of rubber.

Can you talk about Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Selena Kyle (played by Anne Hathaway) in this movie? We’ve seen pictures of them holding hands!

Have you? You think you have, have you? Aaah, maybe some people are seeing things and they don’t know what they’re looking at. It’s quite interesting to watch and hear what people think we’re doing. You look and go, ‘That’s not what we’re doing. But never mind, let’s let people think that’s what we’re doing.’

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/ Batman in The Dark Knight Rises

Your hair’s a bit longer in this movie than the others. Is there any significance to that?

Yeah, a little. But we’ve always had to mess around… every single movie that we’ve done for the Batman stuff has always had hair that we’ve had to be able to adapt to different looks throughout. So the longer you keep it, the more you can do with it.

As this is the final film, does it leave you the freedom to create a good character arc in this movie?

I have no clue what the audience is going to think about the movie. Thank god I got someone like Chris who is really great at gauging that. He represents the audience for us on the set. So for me, I love the character so much that you’d get a very bizarre Batman movie. People would go, ‘What the hell? Why are we delving so much into his psyche?’ He is a fascinating character and then Chris just has to tell me the points when it gets tedious and boring and doesn’t want to see what I’m doing. It’s great having someone at the helm who is remarkably confident at going with his gut and not desiring any safety net or anything to fall back on. There are a number of times when I say to him: ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to do a few other variants? I can do this one, and what if later you choose to change this part of the story, in that case we need to change the domino effect. If you want I can give you three or four different ways you can play it.’ He’s like: ‘No, no, I know what I want.’

In honesty, there are probably a lot of stories that can be told with Batman. I like the idea of him growing older and he can’t quite do it as much anymore. But I kind of feel, you have to leave when the going is good and this is when Chris wants to wrap it up. And it’s the right time.

Is Batman’s drive still fed by the death of his parents? Or has he accepted a larger responsibility for Gotham that is not necessarily fuelled by that anymore?

To me, he has it all, it’s all in there. The thing is, he is still that child basically. The one thing that I do know, and there’s an awful lot in the graphic novels which we’ve played with a little bit, is this whole notion of him genuinely being a playboy versus what we’ve done, which is he sort of performs that but his heart’s not really in it. And the eternal problem that Alfred (Bruce Wayne’s valet and confidant) has with watching this guy who has no life. He’s got this fierceness in his mind and emotions that he just will not forget the pain of the parents. With most people it’s like time heals all wounds, but with him it’s like, ‘No, no, no.’ He doesn’t want to forget it, he wants to maintain that anger that he felt at that injustice but equally he wants to present this very vacuous soulless persona to Gotham, so hopefully no one will suspect him but will just think he’s a spoilt bastard.

Is anything from the previous instalments dealt with in this one?

There’s an awful lot of new discoveries, truths coming out, and the whole question of what’s the correct thing to do. Continue with lies and make people feel good or have the truth come out and devastate and ruin peoples’ lives. So yes, absolutely, it goes back to Batman Begins and Dark Knight and deals with an awful lot from both of those movies.

Tell us about working with Marion Cotillard and Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy...

It’s a real good cast. I worked with Marion really briefly in Public Enemies and she’s a wonderful and versatile actress. So far, the work’s been really great with her (Marion plays Miranda Tate). With Anne likewise, I think she’s doing something very different than what most people probably would have seen her do before. And Tom, who I’ve been working with mostly the last few weeks, he’s a real fascinating actor. He’s going to be creating some wonderful characters over his career and he’s doing so with this. He’s got a great character that he can chew the scenery with in a good way. He’s the real deal. I’m very impressed with him. I’m very impressed with all the cast on this one.

---

I’D LIKE TO BE BATMAN... THE COOLEST SUPERHERO: SHAH RUKH KHAN

If it doesn’t sound strange, I would marry him if I got a chance! I love Batman. Batman is so cool because, see, it’s a boy fantasy. He’s a playboy in the day, he’s got really cool cars, he’s handsome, lots of money, he’s got a cleft, he’s got a mansion, he’s got girls, really cool suits, he’s got underground caves with machines that you don’t understand and a wonderful valet who looks even more sophisticated than him at times. And he’s got a sidekick who is too colourful for my liking but really pretty girls and even the bad girls like Catwoman… they like him.... So he’s got a signal — zoop! His name comes down and says, ‘I have to go’ and he’s got a utility belt. He’s really cool and he’s human.

There’s nothing in this world that compares to Batman. I have a lot of things I have to achieve if I want to be Batman and the playboy image. Yes, I think to me there is nothing greater than Batman, honestly. I would do this interview wearing a Batman costume. I will dance at one of the parties that Batman gives and Joker can join in.... I mean I’d really like to do that. I think it’s one of the finest comics. I personally feel that Batman was one of the finest reading materials that I had when I was growing up. They were drawn very nicely, the casing was very different and the art was fantastic and the movies have been very good, the television series.... So I’ve seen it all.

You can ask me anything about Batman. I’m bad with names but I know everything. Batman is the coolest superhero. Yes I’d like to be Batman.

You can catch Shah Rukh talking about Batman and more on The Front Row with Anupama Chopra on Friday at 8.30pm on STAR World

Who in Bollywood can play Batman better than Bale? Tell t2@abp.in