baleheads

Question: "Are you a Balehead?"
Answer: "What's a Balehead?"

Sadly enough, fans of Christian Bale refer to themselves as baleheads. It's a really strange token of appreciation and slightly off-putting. For me, the word 'balehead' somehow conjures up the word 'buckethead', which implies a random man standing in the middle of an open field with a bucket over his head. Despite the ugly fan-name, Christian Bale is a very talented actor with superhuman levels of intensity and dedication. It doesn't hurt that his face looks perpetually gaunt. Despite all of his talent, my real affection lies in the way that he never smiles in any of his movies (except when he's insane) and has a cute albeit sometimes annoying lishp.

Now that he's on my list, I
a) Watch a bunch of his movies indiscriminately (Maybe not the one with fire-breathing dragons)
b) Read as many online interviews as possible.

a is rather difficult as I will eventually hit a boring movie or movie #7 and lose all of my interest. b is easy since the ratio of articles to original source material is about 10:1, which leaves me with about 3 pages total.

It's a bit sad that celebrities complain about the lack of privacy, but how can you expect the paparazzi not to hound you when your face is projected on thousands of screens every year? Also, people (like me) want to know where the talent comes from. At least, I want to read interviews and look for the bits of genius that translate into a superb analysis of some facet of human behavior. Generally, I like to read interviews rather than watch them, although this isn't quite a problem for Christian Bale, who mainly stays in character (at least in accent) for most of his interviews. Written interviews are generally better because they're heavily edited. I'd rather not see the actor looking and acting entirely like a monkey on Ellen or Oprah. Yes. Art is art and life is life. However, it's hard for me to ever see Kristin Bell in the same light again after seeing her giggle and ditz her way through several face-to-face interviews that were covered with several brightly layered coats of fakeness. Hmmm...I would love to see Christian Bale and Kristen Bell in a movie together (their names sound eerily similar), although given that Christian Bale would probably rather die than appear in a comedy, the chances are virtually nil.

From Christian Bale's interviews, it's clear that he's as serious in person as in his characters. For his roles, he pushes the envelope both mentally and physically. Just a few things I wouldn't do for my job: Eat maggots, fight snakes, lose 60 lbs, gain 60 lbs, etc. I would: stand on top of very tall buildings and jump out of helicopters. He's not the only dedicated actor in Hollywood, but perhaps one of the most extreme. It doesn't hurt that he also sounds semi-intelligent and looks hunky with a face so sharp that it could probably saw through metal. I joked that he's eternally serious because his cheekbones are so sharp that smiling is impossible. All of the fun aside, he's turned out very good performances in American Psycho, Batman Begins, Rescue Dawn, and just about everything else he's been in. Even in movies that suck, Christian Bale pulls through with his singlemindedness.

Sometimes his performances are a bit heavy even for the movie at hand, but he's clearly talented. What impresses me is how young he is and the immense quality and quantity of his work, although underrated until the pivotal Batman series. Even in The Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale did an amazing job at thirteen in a very difficult role. His acting is fully on par with Leonardo DiCaprio's virtuoso turn in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. What differentiates Christian Bale in his roles is that sometimes his characters are really frightening because there isn't any sense of lightness or redemption in them. With Clive Owen and other actors who stray towards darker characters, there's always the quintissential humor to humanize the person and make him not so frightening. Christian Bale gives his characters a rich inner life but not always humanity.

Conclusion: I think I'm a balehead?