Top 50 Christian Bale Quotes

I’ve had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I’m trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don’t want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.

I only sound intelligent when there’s a good script writer around.

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.

I find something fascinating about the quiet man in the background who has no desire to be the center of attention.

Look, I’ve got incredible pride for my family. I’ve absolutely fallen into that cliche of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly.

I’m English. Our dentistry is not world famous.

If I’m not working, I really have nothing to do with it – I’m not hanging out and mixing with film people. Not that I have anything against film people; they’re some of the best people around and some of the worst people around, just like in any business… they just gesticulate a little bit more.

I find what I do for a living really funny. I mean, acting is kind of a hilarious thing for a grown man to call a job.

I don’t get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made, and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can’t help but feel like this reduces it a little bit.

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.

A lot of actors say that theater’s the thing for them. And that’s great, and I’m not one to speak with any authority about it because of not having done it properly. For me, movies are what I love.

I met my grandfather just before he died, and it was the first time that I had seen Dad with a relative of his. It was interesting to see my own father as a son and the body language and alteration in attitude that comes with that, and it sort of changed our relationship for the better.

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.

In terms of the romantic kind of lead, I just never enjoy those movies very much. Maybe they’ll come to interest me more as I get older. I doubt it, but maybe. Romantic comedies tend to be, for me, an oxymoron.

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.

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.

And being as I’m somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.

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.

All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You’ve said that you will commit to this part, and I just can’t live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.

Well, it’s embarrassing to be a star.

There was a great complexity to my father. He was a devoted family man. But, in the same breath, he simply was not suited to an anchored life. He should have been somebody who had a backpack, an old map, a bit of change in his pocket and that was it – roaming the world.

The only thing that I’m obsessed with is sleeping, and actually, it is more than an obsession, it is a pleasure.

It’s got to do with putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting.

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.

I’ve always felt that I would rather see an actor, writer, or musician’s work, rather than actually know the person. If you know too much about an artist, it somehow lessens their ability to do their work as well.

I don’t have acknowledged preferences of characters.

An actor should never be larger than the film he’s in.

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.

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 tend to stay in character between scenes… to be rather serious on set, but here’s why, and I think people will find it surprising. I’m one of the worst ‘corpses’ on a movie set, which means you can’t keep a straight face. You start to get the giggles and you can’t stop.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise.

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

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.

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

My hope is that people will be repulsed by the character’s complete lack of ethics and obsession with consumerism – that’s what I was saying about the difference between the character’s message and the film’s message.

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

I have a fear of being boring.

‘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.

It’s about pursuing it rather than waiting to see what comes along. That’s partly because I found myself getting typecast, as everyone does unless they pursue roles that are very different from what they’ve done before.

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

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.

I do like taking stuff seriously that a lot of people look at as nonsense. I enjoy the insanity of that. And I like the commitment that is needed for that.

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.

I never want to feel that I’m playing it safe.

I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I’m not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I’ll just see what happens with it.

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.

You’re creating a different world and the actor’s job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not.

Everyone always tells you that you’re the only one that can do this or that role right, and if you say no, they go to somebody else and tell them that they’re the only one that can do it right. But when they’re talking to you, you’re always the ‘Best Actor of Your Generation.’