Empire: You and Tom Hardy trade quite a few blows. How was he to work with?
Bale: Tom is phenomenal. He’s an extraordinary actor. If I was a director I would want Tom to be in my movies. He
knows his shit. But it’s a funny distance that you have in these movies, literally, by being cocooned by a cowl. I don’t
truly feel like I’ve worked with Gary [Oldman], even though we’ve done three movies together. I don’t really feel like
I’ve worked with Gary because I’m here in this darkness every time. And likewise with Tom, we’re both behind these masks.
He’s feeling that isolation as well. It’s a strange feeling. So we agreed after this we’d like to work with each other on
something one day!
Empire: What was your reaction when you were first told that Bane would be the main villain?
Bale: I thought it was a great idea. The only time I’ve ever really familiarised myself with the graphic novels was
previous to Batman Begins. For inspiration, for understanding what Chris [Nolan] was going for. After that I never picked
one up again, because by then we had created our world, so I just referenced that one. So I wasn’t familiar with Bane, you
know? I vaguely remembered just a crazy ‘roid-looking guy with a mask. But I just trust and have faith in Chris. Look, this
is not going to be an impulsive decision of his, you know? I always kinda
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suspected he would do a third one. But it was never definite. And I hoped that he would think of it as a challenge, the fact
that with most movies, by the time they get to a third one, it’s crap. So I knew he wasn’t gonna mess around with making a poor
decision on who the bloody villain was.
Then I just went and sat around at Chris’ house and astounded him with how slow a reader I am. I sat and read and he kept walking
in going, “You’re kidding me! Still?” And I’m like, “Yeah. Still.” Then lunch… dinner… [laughs]. Then he came in and was like,
“That actually took you seven hours”. [laughs]. And I understood at that point.
Empire: The Dark Knight was an immense success...
Bale: I understand that. Yes. I’ve heard, I’ve heard. It did quite well.
Empire: You’ve been told, good! But to do a billion, I don’t think anyone could have guessed that. Did that create more
pressure on this?
Bale: Well, that’s not a bad pressure to have, is it? You should feel you wanna top the experience. I think the bad pressure
would be if it was focused on the money. I always confess that I have no idea what people wanna see. I’ve got no clue. I’m an idiot
with that. With Titanic I thought,
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