Quotes By Christian Bale

Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.

My dad was the biggest influence on my life because he was never boring.

And I not only inherited an aversion to the nine-to-five routine, but the sense from my parents that being bored and boring is the worst thing that you can be.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest.

So yeah, a good director will be able to listen and hear everything, but have a confident vision of his own that he can say, 'oh yeah - that's a great point.' And you never know; often you can help far more than you think you can, because there's so much more that he's juggling than an actor.

I mean, first of all, let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he wasn't really onto anything good. The number of times I'm treading on that damn thing or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It's really not practical.

There have been many times when you spend a number of months and the finished product is not what you wanted to see. And 'Batman Begins' was what I wanted to see.

Certainly I have no attraction to misery. I don't intentionally go for dark.

When it comes to films, people often don't differentiate between the message of a bad central character and the message of the film itself. They are two separate things.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

All I've ever ended up with in terms of achievements is the movie, some really stupid anecdotes, a bunch of crosswords that I didn't finish and maybe some old bicycle that I found lying around on set.

But I learned that there's a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there's not much else that can really get to ya.

In everyday life, my wife is the most wonderful. We're in love with each other beyond belief.

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.

I think trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do.

'3:10 to Yuma' was one that I just kept on talking and thinking about after reading it. And I think the reason is because, like in most Westerns, you have the very clear-cut bad-guy/good-guy, however, as the movie progresses, you kind of see that it's a very fine line that divides these two.

I don't have acknowledged preferences of characters.

The point of having a director is that they make the final decision; it's their point of view, they set the rhythm and they make the final decisions.

I will never say never, but I will say never to doing the more typical romantic comedies. You know, unless I'm getting audited and I'm on the street and I desperately need some dough and that's the only thing that I'm getting.

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.

I don't want to know about the lives of other actors and I don't want people to know too much about me. If we don't know about the private lives of other actors, that leaves us as clean slates when it comes to playing characters. That's the point, they can create these other characters and I can believe them.

I'm an actor I'm not a politician. I always kick myself when I talk too much about family, or personal things.

I always figure hey, look, I'm not a rock star, I'm an actor. I'm somebody who's meant to be other people and I'm not meant to be here representing myself. I'm happier when I'm presenting myself as other characters.

I start from scratch with each movie; I wipe the slate and I certainly don't rely on some bag of acting tricks I've amassed over the years.

I tend to think you're fearless when you recognize why you should be scared of things, but do them anyway.

A teenager usually wants to try to get people to notice him in some way, to feel like someone gives a damn. Me, all that attention, I just wanted to fade into the background. Be invisible. Disappear.

I think mostly it's the adventure that I will have in making the movie. That's what I look for.

I have this theory that, depending on your attitude, your life doesn't have to become this ridiculous charade that it seems so many people end up living.

It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.

I always leave that for other people to decide, because some of the things I consider to be disasters are some people's favorite movies. And that's what I like so much, is that you never know. Something intrigues somebody and means nothing to somebody else.