Christian Bale Quotations | Page 2

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.

Being misunderstood is not a bad thing as an actor. I know the truth.

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!"

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

I want to do good work. I want the opportunity to work with good people, and the only way I'm gonna do that is to commit 110% - you get out what you put in.

I feel like I'm pretty good but I don't like to toot my own horn, you know. I want to let the work speak for itself and kind of move on to the next thing.

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.

You have to treat yourself like a mushroom to some degree, in order to keep on discovering things.

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 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?"

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.

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.

I think it's important when you're acting to be as relaxed as possible even if you're doing something intense. You're basically in a state of dynamic relaxation.

It's very easy to leave when things go wrong, but to stick around and to basically give life to a town because of everything that it gave you generation after generation after generation, that to me is what defines a true American.

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 would have been very happy just cruising around and enjoying the unexpected. I've never been ambitious.

I never, in any city I've ever been in, never remember the names of streets. The longest place I ever lived in was for five years and I didn't know the name of the next street over.

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.

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.

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.

I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.

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.

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.

'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.

I'm not really into musicals.

I started my career without fans.

We were incredibly fortunate to get to make three [Batman films]. That's enough. Let's not get greedy. It's a torch that should be handed from one actor to another. So I enjoy looking forward to what somebody else will come up with.

Sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people have got to have their faith rewarded.

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.

I like being responsible for myself

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.

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.

I swear, the bigger your muscles get, the duller you are. You become fascinated with carbs and protein and ripped abs and things that are just not interesting at all.

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

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

Were all conning ourselves, one way or another, just to get through life.

It was a great honor to be called a mo-fo by Sam Jackson.

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.

You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

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.

The art of survival is a story that never ends.

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

Well, it's embarrassing to be a star.

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.

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

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

I don't think I was particularly in need of superheroes. I never had any fascination with Superman or Spider-Man or a Batman kind of character. If it happened at all, it was imagined characters that I had invented. My dad was a role model for me. He was a fascinating man. There was intrigue and entertainment growing up with him. He gave me an edict that I still pursue: “Life should never be boring.

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

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

I have a fear of being boring.

You say something bad about Newsies and you have an awful lot of people to answer to.

There's nothing like boxing for getting you in shape.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you're giving it up, you're at the mercy of so many other people.

Whatever you do, do it completely. Don't do it half-arsed. Do it more than anybody else would.

It's about pursuing it rather than waiting to see what comes along.