getting off a plane having done your work - or hoping that you've done your work - and walking on a set in front of a
camera". There's no rehearsal, there's no whistles and bells and frills. It's just, you know, it's guerilla. You jump out
of the helicopter and you're in the battle.
Empire: So is that how Chris is as an actor's director? Is it very much that he lets you find the voice and the
style yourself?
Gary: Well, my experience with him has been that. I think perhaps if I'd done something that he didn't like, he might
have said, "Make it more like this," but he trusts the people he casts. He has a great deal of trust, and he expects you to
do the work. You've got to turn up ready and prepared; he has no truck with people who are not ready. It's not that he's a
bully, he's not a screamer. I've never actually heard him raise his voice to anyone. It's not that he completely leaves you
alone, either. You'll do a take and he might step in and say, "There's a little more urgency to this, there's a little more
at stake," or "Pull back off on this a bit because remember you've got this scene and this scene coming up, so give me a
different colour here that you can play later". He tweaks and nudges rather than tell you how to do it. Listen, I've directed
and it's like a benign dictatorship in that you've got to kind of manipulate. I always think directors get what they want but
they do it in such a way that the actor
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feels that they've come up with the idea, when in fact you're giving the director what he wanted all along. There's a real
art and a skill to it and a sort of diplomacy involved. Everybody has their way of working. [Tom] Hardy will just want to
talk it out and talk it out and talk it out and analyse it. Some people sit quietly on it.
Empire: What's Christian Bale's approach?
Gary: Christian... I've never really talked to him about it. I've always really got to the set and I mean he's always
ready. I just noticed with Tom that he sort of has to bounce it around a bit. And of course Michael! There was one scene [on
The Dark Knight Rises] where Michael, Michael Caine, had to get very emotional and it's almost heart-breaking, it's almost
too painful to watch. And he came in, take one: Got it. Take two: Got it. Take three: Nailed it. I mean it was like watching
a masterclass in acting. I said to Christian at the time, "That is how it's fucking done." Just seeing it. No messing.
Empire: It's funny, because Christian said he doesn't feel like he's properly worked with you, even though he's
done three films with you, because he's always behind that cowl and it creates this distance. Do you appreciate that?
Gary: Yeah, he's rather formidable and he's rather scary in those scenes. In the flesh. It
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