(Credits: Activités culturelles UdeM)
Method actors have a bad reputation among their co-stars for being impossible to work with. The ‘method’ technique goes in and out of vogue in film and theatre. However, there are a number of actors committed to staying in character under all circumstances, rain or shine, sickness or health, and having colleagues and friends. Christian Bale is one of the more extreme examples, well documented for putting on and losing weight at what seems like an impossible clip.
And he’s occupied the news cycle with several scandals regarding the intensity baked into the method process. If you believe in the ‘method’ school–or even if you don’t–it’s served Bale well. From the age of 12 in Empire of the Sun, he’s been lauded in most of the films he appeared in. Well, most of them.
But the one residing in infamy, the one which lives most enduringly in public memory would probably be his meltdown on the set of 2006’s Terminator Salvation where he prosecuted a violent tirade of verbal abuse against cinematographer Shane Hurlbut. Bale is an actor with so many flowers that he could wear a boutonniere on his lapel for every day of his life, so it was quite shocking to many people.
Taika Waititi, director of 2023’s Thor: Blood and Thunder, didn’t share these concerns. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he was asked, “My sense is that Christian Bale, who plays your villain, is a very, very serious person. How did your personalities intersect on set?” and replied that Bale was a “sweetheart”, although expressing nerves about having a method actor on set.
“I, too, thought that Christian was going to be like a very … you hear stories about actors who are Method-y, and they really take it seriously.” Waititi said, who up until this point was mostly known for doing smaller indie comedy films not robust with a Marvel calibre budget. “And I am just used to working with my friends where we have a very casual way of working together, we give each other a lot of shit and it’s like being with the family.”
Waititi concluded, “So I would say that I was a little anxious to work with Christian and Russell Crowe. But I’d say out of all of the actors, those were the two biggest sweethearts I’ve ever worked with. No problems, no ego.” However, he seems to have warm relationships with all his actors, saying, “Chris Hemsworth has basically got it all” regarding his role as Thor and that Hemsworth was “annoyingly good at acting”.
Thor: Love and Thunder got mixed reviews and fan reception, not quite reaching the heights of Thor: Ragnarok, but one of the consistently positive appraisals was of Christian Bale’s performance as ‘Gorr the God Butcher’, villain of the story who aims to relieve the Pagan Gods that populate the film from their heads, their internal organs and the like. Chris Hemsworth’s titular character wasn’t so well received, but he can enjoy Waititi saying that Hemsworth is “a great surfer”.
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