These are photos of Christian Bale with his wife, Sibi, at the Madrid premiere and photocall for Exodus: Gods and Kings. I was going to include last night’s NYC photos too, but they’re exactly the same (except Sibi is wearing black instead of blue). Bale is in a furry phase, which is nice if you like him that way. I prefer him shaved.
Bale’s been getting into some trouble while promoting this movie, which didn’t need any help trashing itself. Ridley Scott already made controversial remarks about race and the casting process, and Rupert Murdoch backed up Ridley. When Rupert agrees with someone, that’s usually not a good sign. Opponents organized a #BoycottExodusMovie hashhag. This certainly isn’t the first movie to cast in a culturally insensitive manner, and it won’t be the last. That sucks.
Bale’s been doing his part to distract with his own alienating quotes. Oh, who am I kidding? He’d be doing this no matter what. Kaiser already talked about how Bale called Moses “troubled, schizophrenic, and barbaric.” Last week, religious scholars called Bale out again.
Anyway. Bale calmed down a little bit to talk about losing the Batman role. He famously decided not to play Batman again after Christopher Nolan’s last turn at directing the neurotic superhero. When it comes to Bale, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Bale held a secret torch for Batman, and he grew a little melodramatic when Ben Affleck’s casting was announced:
Why Bale left Batman: “[Batman is] a character that could have kept on going and going and going. It was right for Nolan to finish it where he did and ours doesn’t belong in any other version at all. It was appropriate to leave at the right time.”
When Bale heard that Batfleck was cast:: “When I heard there was someone else doing it, there was a moment where I just stopped and stared into nothing for half an hour.”
[From Empire via Screenrant]
I laughed for far too long at the vision of Bale dropping his whole life to stare into the distance for 30 minutes over Batfleck. He doesn’t say anything bad about Ben Affleck as Batman, but you can tell Bale was crushed. I’m enjoying this Batman-on-Batman gossip cycle, by the way. Outlets want to make it seem like Michael Keaton threw shade at Batfleck when he really didn’t. Bale did effectively shade George Clooney, but I’m not sure that counts as Bat-on-Bat drama. Does it? Clooney was the worst Batman. He shouldn’t count.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN
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