No wonder Michael Phelps eats so much! And I thought it was all that swimming . . .
lol Soybean. I guess that’s how he learned to hold his breath underwater.
Justin,
first this post isn’t helping your argument that this news shouldn’t be overblown.
Second, actors are spoiled. Like Hitch said, actors are cattle. Screw ’em
I was hoping this would be a thread I could rant about how I’m tired of seeing Mr. Bale bailout franchises. And he better not touch RoboCop!!!
What I’ve gathered from this: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39984
…is that it was the DP (or assistant DP) who walked into Bale’s eyesight behind Bryce Howard while the cameras were rolling to fix a light that was on him, and it broke his concentration on the scene, which apparently was a very important and emotional one. Also, it wasn’t the first time the guy had made the mistake of attempting to tweak the lighting during a take.
I can understand how serious it is to be screwing around with something while someone’s trying to act, and I’ve decided I’m MOSTLY on Bale’s side based on everything I know about the incident.
http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_audio/020209_christianbale.mp3
Theres the audio, and honestly…..regardless of who’s fault it was, such a verbal attack is never justified especially when the other party is outright completely apolegetic.
Not to mention, its “the” DP, not an assistant so I think he deserves a certain degree of respect. If anything, Bale was the one being unprofessional by threatening to kick the guy’s ass, demanding that hes fired, and ultimately threatening to ditch the project when he is under contract.
DIVA!!!!!
The Christian Bale thing is a non story to me as long as the guy he yelled at holds no sore feelings now. He’s an actor and an intense method one at that. He may have apologized to the guy later. Who’s to know and who’s to care. As for Phelps, I don’t think it’s a surprise or a big deal that he was toking but I do believe he should lose his non-athletic endorsements (not Speedo and Nike but things like Kellogg’s). I’m not questioning his morality just his common sense. No one forced him to take those multi million dollar endorsements. Those companies logically have ethics clauses to protect themselves and once he decided to take the money, he chose to limit his personal choices. Football players often have clauses that prohibit them from playing pickup basketball or riding motorcycles. If they get hurt doing one of those things, they can lose a lot of money. Why should Phelps be different than Jay Williams who lost most of his NBA contract because he hurt himself riding a motorcycle? I’m not calling him immoral just stupid. If he wants to live his life however he wants then he doesn’t get to advertise breakfast cereal. Tough.
From the cinematography site, they report it was the DP, Shane Hurlbut, who moved to look at or tweak a light, and Bale just went at him for 3-4mins. I have the whole tirade as an audio file, and it is very ugly. It sounds like, yes, SH made a mistake; he shouldn’t have moved, but…..
Bale’s complete dressing down of him in front of the whole crew, capped with what sounds like Bale attempting to physically attack Hurlbut is about as out of line as you can get.
I don’t care how wrapped up in something you are, or how much money is at stake, there are ways and ways, and this is not one of them, at least not if you want to be called an adult in my book.
In my world of broadcast TV, we do something film people never have to deal with: we go “live”. And that means when the moment comes, it comes, and you’d better be ready. Mistakes happen and tempers fray, but in the 20 years I have done TV, I have never seen or heard anything like this.
yea i posted the audio up above for anyone interested and he definitely made physical threats among others….
in terms of tv, there’s always this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjNVVwRCY
Last time I checked this was not a hollywood gossip site.
A leak of the new Terminator soundtrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTihsJQHt48
ahah yea….i just saw that post over on Pitchfork earlier today…
Troy, I’m sorry, I didn’t consider it gossip. Bale is a semi-serious actor with a high profile, I know a lot of people here like The Dark Knight, so I was just curious what people thought about this.
Yes this doesn’t seem to be a gossip site but honestly don’t get why this should be an issue. Where does it dictate or even mention in any form that people cannot make general topics? I’m not arguing whether or not this specific topic is relevant to the overlying themes of this site holistically, more so that either way I don’t see why this should be a problem.
If there is a set of rules or like a Sticky topic I don’t know about, please direct me over. I am new, so its not an impossibility that I simply haven’t discovered it as of yet.
Sorry if this sounds confrontational because I definitely don’t mean to be, but I am truely and simply just a bit confused/uninformed.
Still love Bale. This will have to be in the running for greatest set outbursts, besting Lily Tomlin finally going off on David O Russell on I Heart Huckabees, but that one had video… Still not as public as Bill Murray in What About Bob? and when he took the glasses off Laura Ziskin and crushed them under his foot. What asses people can be sometimes!
My stand: What Bale did was out of line but I don’t think he should be vilified for it. He’s a human being. He makes mistakes. He has bad days. It doesn’t make him a jerk necessarily.
Christian Bale is a spoiled, whiny little pussy who needs to be bitch-slapped. I’ll kick his ass!
This post is f*&%ing distracting. You’re a nice guy, but that don’t F#$%^ing count when you’re bullshitting on this site.
Distracting? Bullshitting? How? It’s a legitimate topic, you don’t have to read it if you don’t like it, with all respect.
Such anger and hating. Brother.
He’s quoting Bale.
Ohhhh you caught me. Sorry! That went over my head! And I took it personally, so I can only imagine how the DP feels.
And now (drum roll please)… the t-shirt:
http://site.despair.com/christianbale/
Richard is clever. Very clever. Justin, you got sucker punched. Ouch! That was great!!! I have a whole new respect for you Richard.
lol. Yeah. Didn’t see it coming.
Man I was wondering when the whole Balegate thing was going to hit these forums. Having has this happen to me personally as a director it’s a pain in the ass. I understand how much emotion is put into a scene and if its a very emotionally charged one that tempers can flare up easily. For some reason I think it’s more of a staple with method actors, a lot of the ones I’ve worked with are very much on edge and the slightest things can set them off. That being said the DP shouldn’t be tweaking lights during a take, especially in an eye line of an actor. I’m not condoning the verbal abuse, but you don’t tweak lights in the middle of a take.
I will say that, as amusing as Bale gets, the best abuse comes from anyone from New York or ‘Joisey.’ Directors, ballplayers, musicians…if they are from there, it becomes a kind of demented poetry.
Hurlbut shouldn’t have done what he did. And Bale should have shut up after (max) 60 seconds, and should definitely not have lunged at the DP.
Eh, McG was a total wuss throughout that yell-a-thon, he should have control over his actors but instead he just sits idly by waiting for Bale to calm down. Yeah, Bale was a prick, but McG needed to show that he was the director and assert his presence, but it seems he was as afraid of Bale’s outburst as anyone which is pathetic. However, since Bale has worked with Herzog perhaps there is a future Herzog/Kinski relationship between Herzog and Bale, although I would feel really bad if that were to happen to Herzog again. Not to say I don’t love Kinski.
Actually, on some level I think Herzog, in his perverse way, would welcome a new adversary. God knows the films benefitted from the bloodletting between takes.
Herzog was one of a very small group to attend Kinski’s funeral, despite everything that went down between them.
The question would be if Bale would have the stamina to keep up with Herzog, the way Kinski did.
Justin Biberkopf
Apparently Christian Bale went off on a tech guy who walked into his sight line while shooting a scene, thereby throwing him off his concentration. Somebody recorded the whole tirade and now it’s being played on TV news shows. First, is this what passes for hard news these days? Second, how can anyone be truly outraged by this? Bale has always seemed to me to be a bit monstrous; a lot of actors have an a-hole side; he’s paid to play bad-ass guys, do we expect him to behave like a priest or something all the time.
Third, why is he so easily distracted by a tech guy?
I think this scandal, like so many others, is way overblown. And on a related note I thought it was very refreshing that Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps has not lost any of his fancy endorsements (at least so far) in the wake of being photographed toking a bong.