It turns out the real life of the actor who plays The Dark Knight is, well, dark.
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Christian Bale, the 34-year-old star accused of assault this weekend by his mother and older sister on the eve of the European premiere of Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight, had a traumatic childhood himself. (Bale denied the assault, according to his lawyers.)
No, his parents were not mowed down by criminals like the fictional Bruce Wayne’s.
But his mother, Jenny Bale, a former circus performer, and his father, David, a dashing South-African-born pilot and talent manager, encouraged - some say pushed - their only son to act – and, at age 13, with no formal acting training, Christian Bale shot to fame as the lead in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.
But it was a difficult and isolating experience for the adolescent boy.
Bale has recalled being bullied by jealous schoolmates back home, and finding the pressures of work unbearable, he once fled a French hotel where he was supposed to sit through several interviews.
At around the same time, his parents’ marriage disintegrated, and his father moved a continent away to Los Angeles, where he would subsequently meet and marry his third wife, the feminist icon Gloria Steinem, before dying of a brain tumor in December, 2003.
Christian Bale recently said of early stardom: “I have very strong opinions about why kids should not be working at such a young age. I think introducing children to a professional industry where they may not recognize the pressure is wrong. Very quickly they’re going to be under pressure. This is an adult industry. I would be very skeptical putting anybody I cared about, who was close to me, in this profession at a young age.”
Little is known about Bale’s relationship with his mother whom he rarely mentions in interviews.
But at 17, Christian Bale left England to join his father in Los Angeles, where he continued to pursue acting – as did his older sister, Louise, with whom he would later share a house in Manhattan Beach and with whom he appeared in Newsies in 1992.
(Ironically, before Christian played Batman in Batman Begins in 2005, Louise Bale played Batman’s mother in The Death of Batman in 2003. )
Bale got steady work on a number of films, but attracted little critical notice until his breakthrough role as Wall Street stockbroker-cum-serial killer Patrick Batemen in American Psycho, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel.
However, he did make fateful connections. He appeared in a remake of Little Women in 1994, where he met his wife-to-be, Sibi Blazic, who was working as a personal assistant to his co-star, Winona Ryder.
They married in 2000 and have a 3-year-old daughter, Emmeline, but Bale refuses to talk about them in interviews, explaining: “I like my privacy and I don’t like answering personal questions.”
Bale’s other sisters are musician Erin and computer professional Sharon – who, along with his mother, brought the assault charge against him.
In an interview with the London Telegraph, Sharon Bale originally denied knowing anything about the charges, but then said: “OK, there was an incident but the police are dealing with it.
“It is an extremely sensitive situation. There is nothing more I can say.”
The alleged assault was believed to have taken place on Sunday night at Park Lane’s elegant Dorchester Hotel, where Bale was staying ahead of the screening of The Dark Knight in London’s West End on Monday night. Bale gave his own account to police the next day, reportedly denying the charges, and he was released.
But website TMZ reports today that several days before the alleged assault, Bale went crazy on the set of Terminator 4, at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico after a cinematographer messed up a shot.
“We’re told Bale went wild, screaming, ‘I will kick your ass,’ along with some other choice remarks,” TMZ reported. “Several hundred people -including Military Police - heard the outburst, which was described as ‘intense.’ We’re told Bale was ‘extremely tired and having a bad day.’”
Other media reports suggest that Bale has been depressed since the death of his friend and Dark Knight co-star Heath Ledger who took an accidental overdose of drugs in January.
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