Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Not Christian Bale's Day

If you haven't heard the audio clip of Christian Bale freaking out then take a minute and go have a listen.....then listen to the re-mix, which is pretty funny, both can be downloaded from the same page.

I'll wait a min......Okay.....you've heard it?

So I heard about it this morning on the Today show, and they were all pretty unforgiving. My wife is also very unforgiving. But I'm gonna say something crazy here. I think I understand where he's coming from, much like how Whoopi Goldberg sides with him on The View today:



So I'll start by saying this. Yes, i think Christian Bale was pretty hard on poor Shane Hurlburt the Director of Photography of Terminator: Salvation (and by an odd coincidence Semi-Pro, which I JUST watched last night.) YES, I think Christian Bale has anger management issues and I'd like to think he seeks therapy for that. But who knows. YES, he has a past history with this type of verbal abuse.

But I think people are being too hard on him here. From the audio clip, it sounds like this wasn't the first time Shane was stumbling onto the set during a take. I mean, can't you imagine, as an actor putting yourself into character and then being distracted by some dude walking onto the set in the middle of the scene...and TWICE no less. I think Christian Bale is an amazing actor. Empire of the Sun makes me cry. The Machinist is haunting and his dedication to the role was insane. His role in American Psycho was certainly unique and I'd say brilliant. And for me, he's been the best batman so far.....although I do think his "batman voice" is a bit much.

And what was Shane Hulbert thinking? I mean WHAT was he thinking....He was "looking at the light?" Not much you can do about the light if you are rolling. Why not look at it after "cut." There's a time and place for everything and while the camera is rolling is a time to sit behind a monitor and be quiet. This is the nature of "Quiet on the SET!" which of course includes walking onto set as a no no.

So I just think, or I'd like to, that this had happened before in the day, and maybe this particular scene required more focus and maybe he was tired, who knows when it was in the day and he just snapped. I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying I would have handled it that way. And again, he has some obvious anger management issues, so maybe he should take up meditation or therapy to help him out.

But what I AM saying is, I understand Christian Bale.....I understand and I'm with you on this one, me and Whoopi. And Shane Hulburt? I bet you a million dollars will never wander onto another scene in his LIFE! I mean, would you, after a verbal lashing like that?