00:00And I can't, oh God, after you leave, I'm just going to be sitting here in the other interviews going
00:04through all the other albums that I should have said.
00:06What do you want with a dead girl?
00:08I'm the same. Born from the dead.
00:11I am a monster.
00:15Yeah, so am I.
00:17Hi, I'm Alex from Enemy, and today I'm joined by the star of 54 films, two TV shows, and one
00:23video game.
00:23It's Christian Bale.
00:24Oh my God, is it that many? I've really got to hang my spurs up, haven't I?
00:28What have I been doing? What's the video game?
00:30Batman.
00:30Batman video game? Oh, okay, right.
00:32Okay, thanks for letting me know.
00:34All right, I've got to rethink everything now.
00:36Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time.
00:38Well, let's talk about film number 54, The Bride.
00:41Hold on, I've made one other movie since then.
00:43So is this 54 and the next one's 55?
00:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:46And I've included a couple of TV movies in there that maybe you might not count, I don't know.
00:50I might not count, I might not want to remember.
00:53That's possible, yeah.
00:55But yeah, let's talk about film number 54, The Bride.
00:57The Bride, the thing that immediately jumped out to me was the dance scene.
01:00Walk me through that.
01:01Where did those moves come from?
01:03One of them is a chimpanzee shitting into his hand and then throwing it,
01:07which I did experience at the San Diego Zoo and having to duck as their crap was flying above.
01:14So one of the moves is that.
01:15But it's a protest dance that ends up in revolution.
01:19As you know, it's something which is an answer to meeting your heroes.
01:23He finally meets his hero of Ronnie Reed, who's kind of a Fred Astaire character,
01:27played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who, because of his intense loneliness and lack of any friends
01:33or any kind of companionship, he looks at as his best friend.
01:36He's kind of a stalker like Eminem Stan kind of deal,
01:39where he cannot believe that Ronnie Reed doesn't know him as well as he knows Ronnie Reed.
01:45He also smells an awful lot and arrives kind of saying,
01:50it's me, hey, the two of us, best friends forever, right, and gets rejected.
01:54And so it's a dance that comes out of the pain of being rejected by what you think is your
01:59best friend,
02:00but it's the birth of the true Frank.
02:03And also then we get the bride who really, at that point, starts to define herself
02:11and on this kind of absolute mission from God that she's on,
02:16be able to articulate what it is that she's protesting,
02:19and they spark a revolution after that.
02:20Going to be interesting to enemy readers that you mentioned Eminem Stan there.
02:24Was there some inspiration taken from that,
02:26and maybe some other musicians for the movement or the character?
02:29There was a lot.
02:31We had, the set was filled with so much music,
02:35and then also Maggie would just ask Jesse and I to send her tunes, tunes, tunes all the time,
02:42inspiration, whether it's inspirational or things that could actually be included in the movie.
02:47You know, music is the way to emotion, the quickest way.
02:51If you've ever been involved in editing a movie,
02:53you just take out any of the music, add different music,
02:57and you completely change what the movie is.
02:59It's the way, it is what makes you feel more than any other sense.
03:03What did you send to Maggie?
03:04Do you remember?
03:05Oh, tons.
03:05Oh, there were tons of stuff.
03:07Some, you know, some of it was just sort of straight up punk stuff.
03:10There was a lot of, I don't know, I love the OCs.
03:13You know the OCs?
03:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:14There's a lot of that.
03:15I think there was a lot of, Jesse really loved Spiritualized,
03:19and there was Spaceman 3 stuff as well.
03:22Much more recent things.
03:24You know, Jesse's an incredible singer.
03:25Yeah, yes.
03:26The first John Prine songs, you know, were in there, Pogues.
03:30It was on and on.
03:31It was a long, long list.
03:33Yeah.
03:34Are you much of a dancer in real life?
03:35I love to dance.
03:37I'm not much of a dancer.
03:39So at a wedding, you're not first on the dance floor,
03:42but maybe after a few drinks or something.
03:43Yes.
03:44Yeah, it would be like that.
03:45Yeah, although I can't remember the last time I was at a wedding, if ever.
03:48Another thing about the bride I wanted to ask you was your costume,
03:51because I put my clumpiest shoes on today in honor of Frank.
03:56Yeah.
03:56And I wonder, were they weighted?
03:57Because tell me about the costume.
03:59Yes, they were weighted, but they should look like just enormous shoes.
04:02I did have five-inch lifts.
04:04Yeah, yeah.
04:05As well, but the whole look of it, which Sandy Powell was there,
04:09we worked together going back to Velvet Goldmine Days,
04:11another very music, you know, influenced movie.
04:14She's magnificent.
04:15And what I had looked at very early on as inspiration for Frank
04:19was Sid Vicious in the white jacket, walking down the steps, doing My Way, right?
04:24Yeah.
04:24And then when he would cut himself, et cetera,
04:27Richie Manick from the Manick Street Preachers doing the full reel on his wrist, et cetera.
04:31These were all things that I brought and presented to Maggie as this is Frank.
04:37And so we always knew we wanted him to end up in a white jacket,
04:40and then it was Sandy who went, no, no, no, look,
04:42he wants to look like Ronnie Reed, Jake Gyllenhaal's character,
04:45kind of a Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly character.
04:48Yeah.
04:48He wants to look like that, but then flip it inside out.
04:51And then also, you don't really see it,
04:52but there's all sorts of drawings on the jacket.
04:55It's a shame that so many movies have such beautiful detail,
04:58but just you can't take the time to show it all.
05:01But we had the albatross from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and stuff.
05:05But yeah, it comes back to Sid Vicious walking down those steps.
05:10That was my inspiration.
05:11I mean, the Manick's thing,
05:12it sounds like you really did your research on this.
05:14You should have come down to the NME archive,
05:15because Richie told us, like he was the one that,
05:18there was an NME journalist there.
05:20Oh, that was for NME?
05:21Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:22It was down in Norwich, the art centre.
05:24Okay.
05:24But what did you read about that just on the internet?
05:26Or were you a Manick's fan?
05:27I'm a massive Manick's fan, have been for years.
05:30You know, yeah, I listen to him all the time.
05:32Have you managed to meet any of your sort of 90s indie heroes?
05:35Don't really want to.
05:37Don't need to.
05:37I think that, you know, artists, it's their art that I'm interested in.
05:42I know that I'm a complete disappointment for anyone to meet.
05:45You know, the best of me is in film.
05:47And if I haven't done that yet, I will put the best of me,
05:50you know, into film, the most interesting elements.
05:52So I don't feel the need to meet people.
05:55I just love listening to what they've done.
05:57Come on, big man.
05:59You don't want to play?
06:02Frankie!
06:03Ah!
06:06Ah!
06:07Ah!
06:08Ah!
06:11Ah!
06:11Ah!
06:12Ah!
06:12Ah!
06:12Ah!
06:13Ah!
06:13Now, The Bride is coming out on March 6th,
06:15but that's not the only thing that NME readers are excited about.
06:18It is the new Harry Styles album.
06:20Oh.
06:21There are some people that think they spotted you at a Harry Styles concert in LA once.
06:25True.
06:25Yes.
06:26And I saw this picture.
06:27Ben Harper was supporting.
06:30Yeah, yeah.
06:30He's a friend of a friend.
06:32Oh, okay.
06:32So I was going to say, this is the only picture I found,
06:35but that's you, isn't it?
06:38There it is.
06:38It's like, where's Wally?
06:40Literally, a Wally in there.
06:43Yes, no, no, no, it is, yeah.
06:44I assumed that maybe it was one of your kids that you would take him.
06:47Well, I did.
06:48I did, but the reason was, and look, but you know, full kudos to Harry Styles,
06:53but that wasn't the actual reason.
06:55It was a friend of a friend of Ben.
06:57Yeah.
06:57Who we went and hung out with and then went and saw the show, which was fantastic.
07:01We asked this to everyone that we interviewed.
07:03What's an album that you always go back to?
07:05If you had to pick one, and you could only pick one.
07:07Oh, that's a good one.
07:08That's a very good one.
07:09All right.
07:11There's Pogues.
07:13Was it Summer in Siam?
07:14Yeah.
07:14Definitely.
07:15I Can't Help It, also, Bummed by Happy Mondays.
07:18Yeah, I thought you might pick them.
07:19I love Pure Phase and Laser Guided Melodies by Spiritualized.
07:25Oh, God, there's going to be so many bands that I feel awful that I didn't mention
07:29because I'll immediately look on my phone and go, of course,
07:31I was listening to that this morning.
07:33I was listening to Lou Reed this morning.
07:35Look, it is the most essential art form in my life.
07:39It's the number one thing.
07:41Movies are ridiculously difficult because you're incorporating everything into one, right?
07:47It's crazy.
07:48Music, you can carry with you, put on whatever you want.
07:51Whatever mood you're in, you can put it.
07:53And I use it for acting all the time.
07:55I use music all the time to help me.
08:00And so it's the thing I would absolutely die without.
08:05And I can't, oh, God.
08:07After you leave, I'm just going to be sitting here in the other interviews
08:09going through all the other albums that I should have seen.
08:11You can get your publisher email as a list.
08:13100, 100 records that Christian Bale says you need to listen to before you die.
08:17Thanks so much for chatting to us, Christian.
08:18All right, cheers.
08:24Stop right there!
08:32The dead have got something to say.
08:36And I'm saying it.
08:42The bride of Frankenstein.
08:47No, just the bride.
08:49I'm scared.
08:58I'm scared.
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