Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Christian Bale - Page 3

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.

Planning a career, I always find a tricky thing, because I don't have much of a plan, really.

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

People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.

There's a level of confidence in the actor you're working with that really helps a lot. It makes all the difference.

The risk element only came from acknowledging other people's attitudes toward it, and realizing that they considered it to be a risk for me to do.

It's tough to make a good movie. I think the bigger the movies are, the worse they are. A lot of big movies make a lot of money and you kind of forget about what they are and they don't really make you think.

I never try to guess what anyone else will take from a movie. Every movie is such a different experience for each and every person. I don't like it when people try telling people what they should take from a movie. You should go see it with fresh eyes and see for themselves.

You get those occasional moments when you're absolutely calm, and you've just done something that would have scared you shitless earlier that day, and you've just done it like it was nothing. I find that very relaxing.

Personally, I love going to see a film when you can really watch a character. If you've just read some article about who the actor is sleeping with, that's gonna be at the back of your mind all the time while you're watching the film.

I want to be able to just act and never do any interview, but I don't have the balls to stand up to the studio and say, "I'm never doing another interview in my life!"

For me any moment in front of a crowd is embarrassing, because I can't stand being in front of people. I'm probably one of the worst public speakers. I try to avoid it, but there are times when it's just too rude not to do it. But there really isn't a moment that's not embarrassing for me if I'm going to stand up in front of a crowd.

It's a wonderful thing when your trainer is actually the person you're playing.

I seek … the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

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.

Suddenly people were saying I was cocky because I'd done a Steven Spielberg movie and thought I was better than everyone else, which surprised me at first. I suddenly started feeling like a freak because everyone was treating me differently. It was confusing, and I did wonder if acting was for me anymore.

As an actor, I don't feel like it's necessary to watch a great deal of films. In fact, I think it can lead to imitation and unhealthy competition, which just isn't needed.

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

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?"

I have a very sissy job, where I go to work and get my hair done, and people do my makeup, and I go and say lines and people spoil me rotten. And everyone has that kind of curiosity of how far can you go, how far can you take it. I think it's always good testing yourself.

Research can be interesting, but it can be pointless as well. The realities of making a movie often are not conducive with that. I'm not knocking it. I love doing research myself, but I admit it doesn't always add to the performance.

It was just the two of us, inside there with just mirrors, all the way around us. Everywhere we looked, there were these two freaks, sitting at a table, eyeballing each other.

I'm not really looking forward to wearing a black rubber suit in the summertime in humid Chicago. If you see a pool of sweat through the city, follow it and you will find me.

Dieter Dengler was an amazing man. Who knows what he would've been had he not ever been tested in this way? It's a question that I certainly have myself. What would I be able to do in certain situations? He came out, obviously, looking like a true hero, but he didn't go in looking like that. He was not your typical image of somebody that you would think would be the tough guy who was able to endure. His lighthearted attitude, this sort of dorkiness, and naivete; it ended up being the finest tool for his survival.

What I like about it is that I'm not somebody who's in movies. I'm a guy who's not very good going around the track with a bunch of guys who are a hell of a lot better.

When you do a lot of interviews, you find yourself telling the same stories over and over. After you do it for a whole day, you say, 'Christ, I've said this five times today.' It gets fun when you get so bored you start making it all up.

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.

I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level.

Directors go their whole career without being able to tell personal stories and to work with a cast as talented as they are.

It helps so much being on location. It's like the difference between performing for the rectangle of the camera versus a world being created and then the camera finds things within that. There's a huge difference in that, because what it takes away is performance. You don't feel like performing. You're just kind of doing it. You're existing.

I don't ever really sit back and look at roles I've taken and look at any similarities.

I quite like it when you're working with people and you only get to know them through the scenes that you're doing together.

There are movies that require fantasy and slightly more fantastical acting. Lines that are good for certain movies, in real life circumstances, would be absolutely unbelievable things to really say, and you would look at these people like they're freaks for conversing that way. But somehow for certain styles of movies, it works, and it seems fine.

You have to make an effort to be in an unprotected environment because everyone thinks you're a completely incapable idiot who couldn't possibly brush his teeth without an assistant. You have to make an effort in order to be able to actually experience the country that you're in.

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.

If something's true and sincere, it happens regardless of marketing. The more I talk about it, the more I'm telling people how they should react. And that is an asshole.

I don't like filmmakers to tell people how they should react to their movies. I absolutely have favorites, and I have others that I'm mortified by, but I keep that to myself. I think I've managed to find some very interesting things that I've been very satisfied with recently. I don't know if that's gonna keep going.

If you're smart you're just gonna be all about the work. But as a young person, you want to going out to clubs and doing all the stuff. I'm just glad I survived it.

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

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

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

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

I know a lot of other actors that don't like to look at other references to their characters and things. But I like it. I always look at everything, I read all the books. I read Dieter's "Escape from Laos." I watched the documentary again and again and again. I recorded it just to listen to him a lot. I just don't suffer from feeling like I'm getting caught into an imitation. I just feel like I want to steal some good stuff if it's in there.

I won't kill you but I don't have to save you.

I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, yes, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level. And then you go and have to deal with the financial level.

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?"

I was born in Wales but I'm not Welsh - I'm English.

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.