To those who are impatient between each Christian Bale film, a piece of advice: aim for his hair. “To know how long ago I stopped working, just check the length of my hair and my beardslips the 48-year-old actor, shaggy locks, tufts in battle. As soon as I don’t turn, I let myself go. At work, my appearance is checked every morning, so I savor every bit of freedom…”
His fleece proliferates all the more nonchalantly as, in 2021, Bale chained three shoots in quick succession. Thor. Love and Thundera lambda super-saga, with superheroes, super-hammers and everything, released on July 13; The Pale Blue Eye, a thriller on the short-lived military career of Edgar Allan Poe, announced “soon” on Netflix; and amsterdamwhich reached French cinemas on All Saints’ Day, after a disastrous reception from critics and the public in the United States.
It is for this poorly identified filmic object that he came to speak to the press, at the end of September, in a palace on Place Vendôme, in Paris. He is one of the main co-producers, alongside director David O. Russell, who is directing it for the third time after fighter (2010) and american bluff (2013). “I accompanied David from the first notes scribbled on a restaurant tablecloth, six years ago, to the editing roomhighlighted the comedian. We exchanged a lot of records and documentaries, to fully understand an unknown but essential episode of American history. » Consider the coup attempt hatched by a group of reactionary politicians and industrialists, the American Liberty League, in the mid-1930s.
Unrecognizable from film to film
In the highly romanticized version that amsterdam, this plot is foiled by an extravagant squad led by the character played by Christian Bale, a doctor who repairs veterans of the First World War with unorthodox methods. He offers to their faces what the actor inflicts on his, unrecognizable from film to film: new features, a new identity. Should we see, in this funny role, a mirror of what has moved Bale since his debut, more than three decades ago? “It’s true, I don’t like to recognize myself on screen”confesses, making his British accent vibrate, the one who zigzags from blockbusters to auteur films, inflating his chest in Batman Where terminatorrefining his sensitivity with Werner Herzog, Todd Haynes or Terrence Malick.
Among the questions that punctuate amsterdamthere is another that resonates with his filmography: do we act primarily by choice or by need? “My career is a combination of bothmodulates the actor, who was revealed, at 13, in empire of the sun (1987), by Steven Spielberg. Children play to dress up naturally. They want to experience being someone else. It’s a choice. When my father fell ill [militant écologiste, David Bale est mort d’une tumeur au cerveau, en 2003, à 62 ans], my job has become a need. I had the opportunity to earn money, I was able to help my family. I shot in films, without wanting to. Today, I find myself in a privileged situation, playing has once again become a choice. The pandemic [de Covid-19] reinforced this feeling: “If I take time for such a film, as much as it makes sense.” Because of the death that lurked around us, the filming ofamsterdam was particularly alive. »
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