Christian Bale Worried That He’d End up Looking a ‘Little Foolish’ in ‘Reign of Fire’
Christian Bale once teamed up with Matthew McConaughey for the 2002 feature Reign of Fire. But being such a CGI-heavy film, Bale felt it would’ve been easy for the cast to look a bit ‘foolish’ doing the project.
Christian Bale once opened up about his experiences on ‘Reign of Fire’
Reign of Fire was a 2002 fantasy film that saw Bale playing a warrior protecting his community from dragons. But when Bale was initially offered the part, he admitted that he was reluctant to do the movie. He was partially concerned that the feature wouldn’t live up to expectations special-effects wise.
“I needed convincing, really. I could see that this could be the movie that it has turned out to be, that it could be a great idea. But you’re looking at a script. I have no pictures of a dragon, nothing whatsoever. And whilst I could see that it could turn out like this, I also could see that it could be a huge embarrassment to be involved with. If it wasn’t done in a certain tone,” Bale once said according to MoviePub.
In a resurfaced interview with Phase 9, he also confided that he was a fan of stories with similar mythologies as Reign of Fire. But if the project wasn’t done the right way, Bale was concerned it would’ve been a waste of time.
“My initial thoughts were that it could have become a special effects project rather than an acting project. I was a fan of mythology, through books mainly,” Bale said. “I really liked Clash of the Titans as a kid. These kinds of movies tend to be B- movies and you can enjoy that. But that was not something that I wanted to take five months out to make. I worried that it might end up with the people in it looking a little bit foolish.”
But it seems that the film’s director Rob Bowman persuaded Bale to board the project after a meeting. And visually, the Oscar-winner seemed pleased with the final product.
How Christian Bale acted alongside CGI dragons
Bale hadn’t really been in a film with the same scale of CGI as Reign of Fire. The Batman Begins star would’ve found himself repeatedly responding to creatures that weren’t really there. He asserted that director Bowman allowed Bale some flexibility when it came to interacting with the dragons. And this made for a smooth and pleasant performance.
“I have had directors before to open your mouth wider. But Rob wasn’t like that at all,” Bale said. “Of course we were looking at nothing but to me it wasn’t that different from any other kind of movie that I’ve done. It is all pretense; it’s all fake. It’s just that some movies are more fantastical than others. I didn’t want to approach this any differently from any part I play. I don’t think that there is an actor alive who can’t look at something and pretend that there’s something else there. It’s all about the denial of the reality of your surroundings.”
Christian Bale found ‘Reign of Fire’ scarier to do than ‘American Psycho’
Bale confided that he’s not afraid to take risks in his movies. The star even asserted that he’s especially interested in doing features that could turn out disastrous.
“I’m always also kind of attracted by movies where there is a real challenge and a real possibility of it going really badly wrong,” Bale said. “I have realized that I do like that idea because I have done a few movies now where I thought that this could easily slip one way or the other. There have also been movies where other people have said to me ‘You are nuts for doing this? Why would you risk doing this?’ And I have kind of realized that I enjoy that really.”
One of those films was American Psycho, which saw Bale play his iconic role Patrick Bateman. Although the role was one of his most critically acclaimed performances, there were some who felt the movie might’ve hurt Bale’s career. But Bale considered Reign of Fire a far riskier film.
“To be honest, I’m really quite attracted to risks. This film could be a complete bloody disaster. All sorts of people warned me that American Psycho was a huge risk. This is far more frightening than that ever was,” Bale once said according to The Guardian.
