Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy is considered among some of the best live-action adaptations of the DC superhero Batman. Starting with the 2005 film Batman Begins, it continued with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises and grossed $2.4 billion at the box office. The trilogy was not only a box office hit but also critically acclaimed, as critics defined Nolan’s work as “smart and challenging storytelling.”
While working on such a film series can be stressful, Bale’s constant physical transformations were not very helpful for the director. In the Making of Batman Begins feature, the lead star of the film candidly revealed how Nolan freaked out after he went a bit too far to prepare for his role.
Christopher Nolan Was Concerned About Batman Begins
Multiple Hollywood stars were in the race to star in Christopher Nolan’s 2005 film Batman Begins. However, Nolan found what he was looking for in the American Psycho star Christian Bale. He claimed that Bale had the “balance of darkness and light that we were looking for.”
While he was confident to cast him in the lead role, there came a point when he had to ask the actor how to convince the studio that he was fit to play Batman. Before starting the filming of the 2005 film, Bale had been working on Brad Anderson’s The Machinist, for which he lost a significant amount of weight.
Concerned about his appearance, the Inception director called Bale and asked,
“How am I going to seriously be able to suggest to Warner Bros. that you could play Batman ever if you’re that skinny?”
Nolan suggested The Prestige star put on weight for his DC role, and he did exactly that.
The actor increased his calorie intake and also worked out. However, it soon got out of hand, as Bale claimed, “I was kind of like a bear, I wasn’t really, like, a martial arts guy.” He shared that when the filmmaker saw him like that, he could tell Nolan was freaking out. “Oh Christ, what has this guy done?” the Amsterdam actor recalled The Dark Knight director’s words.
Christian Bale Recalled the Moment of Panic
Christian Bale’s weight was concerning not only for Christopher Nolan but also for everything that had been in progress regarding the film. The producer of Batman Begins, Emma Thomas, recalled that she was worried if he would “fit the Batsuit?”
Bale, however, shared that he misunderstood Nolan’s words when he told him to “get as big as you possibly can.” He soon started working out to lose most of the weight he gained after he came out of his role in the 2004 thriller drama The Machinist.
The actor started working on his stamina and building his muscle tone to get back the body frame he needed to play Batman. With constant training and diet, he was able to get back into the Batsuit. He reprised his role in two follow-up movies as Batman Begins developed into a record-breaking trilogy.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy is available on Max.
Source: Making of “Batman Begins”
