He knew it the second he opened the envelope. Christian Bale was in the backseat of a car, riding home from the set of “The Dark Knight” in London. The package sitting on his lap was postmarked Hollywood, Calif., and inside was a script with the title: “Terminator Salvation.” Instantly, he knew. He knew what his next movie was not going to be.
“I went, ‘No, I don’t even have to read this,’” Bale says, two years later. “I just thought, the mythology is dead. I mean, I did flick through it, because you can always be surprised. But I wasn’t surprised by what I read in that one.”
Back in Hollywood, McG, the director who’d sent Bale the script, was crushed. Bale was the only actor he believed had both the intensity and integrity to kick-start the beloved sci-fi franchise. So he got on a plane to London — no small gesture for a guy whose fear of flying contributed to him dropping out of Warner Bros.’ recent Superman reboot at the last minute because it was being shot in Australia. He believed that if he could just meet with Bale face-to-face, he could change his mind.
The two met at a café near Bale’s home, and McG did everything but act out the entire movie. He even handed Bale a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” saying how the novel’s bleak, post-apocalyptic setting was what he had in mind for the film. But the desperate salesman was no match for the disinterested buyer. Then McG made his final, Hail Mary gambit. He pleaded with Bale to take a chance on him.
Bale recalls, “I had this guy sitting there saying, ‘Christian, didn’t somebody ever take a leap of faith on you to do something radically different than you’ve ever done before? Give me that opportunity.’ So I’m thinking, ‘Oh, f---!’”
Bale’s advisers were against it too. Not just because Terminator Salvation was a sequel to a sequel to a sequel, but also because of McG himself, a man with little more to his credit than “The OC,” a couple of “Charlie’s Angels” movies, and a ridiculous name.
“I had people telling me, ‘Don’t do it, Christian. Don’t go with that guy.’ In a strange way, I like the fact that he keeps that name because it does him no friggin’ favors,” says Bale. “But people hear it and they go, ‘F--- him!’ People were telling me, ‘Christian, you’re too good for ‘Terminator.’’ And I’m thinking, I’m too good? I’m not a snob. I really f---ing enjoy watching a good action movie. Who do you think I am?!”
Actually, that’s an excellent question. If McG’s a director with a successful but slick résumé, Bale is his opposite. He’s been acting since he was 10. At 13, he starred in Steven Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun.” Since then, he’s made 28 films — some big, some small; some memorable, some not. But he’s always been interesting. His brooding, bare-knuckle turn in “The Dark Knight” helped make it the highest-grossing film of all time after “Titanic.” Despite his box office success, though, Bale is still known primarily for his intense preparation for every role and his ferocious intensity on the set — a fact that’s now well-known to anyone with an Internet connection.
Two weeks before “Salvation’s” release, Bale is sitting in a Los Angeles hotel room to promote the film he once vowed he would never make. This isn’t easy for him. Bale’s always been wary of the press. And he knows there are questions that must be answered — questions that have nothing to do with John Connor, the messianic freedom fighter he plays in the film, or with carrying yet another potential franchise on his shoulders.
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Christian Bale’s career
No, there are unduckable questions about his temper. Specifically, the profanity-laced tirade he unleashed on a crew member who made the mistake of wandering into Bale’s sightline during a tense scene on “Salvation.” The rant got leaked onto the Internet in February and was forwarded like a virus, making Bale come off like a bully. It even got turned into a dance remix, which turned the actor into something even worse than a bully — a late-night punchline. Bale went on an L.A. radio show to explain and apologize. But whether or not the public buys that he was in character during the blowup, his image could suffer. A recent survey in Ad Age suggested that his drawing power may have taken a hit because of the incident.
“I don’t care to go into details because, you know what, I don’t believe in making excuses,” says Bale in his native British accent. “It doesn’t matter. It was unacceptable. I went too far. And I learned from it.”
EW: What did you learn?
Bale: (Laughs) Count to 10 first.
EW: When you heard it played back, were you mad at yourself, or just mad that it got out?
Bale: I was surprised at people’s interest. Yes, I was surprised at myself hearing it back. These things happen, and you don’t realize how long you’re going in the heat of the moment. I would just say: inexcusable, my fault, yes, I did it, no excuses.
EW: Why did you apologize on the radio?
Bale: I was being told how it had gone like wildfire, and I was worried that it could completely overwhelm the movie itself. There’s so much hard work that’s gone into this. We had 77 days of smooth running and four minutes of me just going way too far — and that shouldn’t characterize the making of the movie. My concern was that people would unfairly judge the movie based on my bad behavior.
EW: Are you worried that people will think you’re a jerk?
Bale: I don’t feel like I have to explain, “Well, I’m not really like this. I’m a wonderful guy and I have a lovely smile and how can you not like me?”
McG opens the door to his trailer excitedly. “Get in here,” he says. Gladly. It’s August 2008, and it’s 95 degrees on the set of “Terminator Salvation.” We’re in the desert on the outskirts of Albuquerque, N.M., and inside the director’s tricked-out silver Airstream lies salvation of another kind: air-conditioning.
McG has 15 minutes before he’s due back on set to shoot a fight scene between Christian Bale and a T-800, one of Skynet’s latest and most lethal killing machines. But first, he wants to show the “Terminator” “sizzle reel” that he unveiled a month earlier at Comic-Con — a baptism by fire when he and the cast of the reported $200 million tentpole flick faced down a roomful of 6,500 fans who regarded both him and “Salvation” with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Why the hell were they making another “Terminator”? Wasn’t the franchise dead after 2003’s jokey T3? And what on earth was it doing in the hands of a guy like McG?
All fair questions. But right now McG doesn’t seem worried about them. He turns out the lights and directs me to a seat in front of a huge flat-screen TV, pops in a DVD, and cranks up the volume. It has to feel... big. And the next three minutes are big. So big that when it’s over, McG plays it again. Then he says something strange: “The old McG is dead!”
The artist formerly, and formally, known as Joseph McGinty Nichol knows what you think of him. He’s spent the past decade battling the perception that just because of his name, he’s some shallow jackass. Or, as he puts it, “a lightweight with some hip-hop nickname and a gold chain around my neck, who drives a Lamborghini.”
It drives McG nuts that with nearly $570 million under his belt at the global box office, he still has to explain himself. “If you can’t get past my name after 12 years in this industry, you’re not invited,” he says in his L.A. production office two weeks before the film’s release. “If you don’t have the hustle to figure out that McG’s short for ‘McGinty,’ which is my mother’s maiden name, and that she’s the least funky person ever, I’m kind of done. My name won’t define my movies. My movies will define my name.”
He pauses to let this sink in. “Look, I know I have a body of work that would not suggest that I am a credible storyteller. I need to prove myself on this film. Before you can be Johnny Depp, you have to do your time on ‘21 Jump Street.’”
When McG signed on to direct “Salvation,” he knew that hardcore fans of the franchise would cry sacrilege. So he decided that he needed the Godfather’s blessing. He went down to the set of James Cameron’s “Avatar,” hoping to get a benediction (or at least some advice) from the man who created “T1” and “T2. But he walked away empty-handed.
“Cameron was very cordial, but he didn’t give me his blessing,” says McG. “He did tell me, ‘I know how you feel. When I directed ‘Aliens,’ I was following ‘Alien’ and the mighty Ridley Scott, and people thought, ‘Who is this James Cameron? All he’s made is ‘Piranha 2!’’”
A wide smile spreads across McG’s face when he says this. He’s not the subtlest guy in the world, and you can tell that he just wants to come right out and say it: “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” is his “Piranha 2” and “Terminator Salvation” will be his “Aliens.”
After Bale finishes the mea culpa portion of the interview, he seems to relax. He ignores a plate of fresh fruit sitting in front of him, opting for a gooey chocolate cookie instead. He slouches on a sofa like a teenager.
Contrary to the popular image of Bale as a self-serious hothead, today he actually comes across as charming and chatty, especially when he explains how he changed his mind about the film and its director. After his London meeting with McG, Bale called Jonathan Nolan, the screenwriter brother of “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan, and asked if he’d work on the story. Nolan overhauled the script, fleshing out the story and beefing up Bale’s role, shifting the focus away from the ambiguously motivated new Marcus Wright character (which was originally offered to Bale, but is now played by Sam Worthington) and creating more of a two-hander that explained how John Connor became the leader of the post-Judgment Day resistance against Skynet.
Bale believed the new screenplay had potential. Over the next few months, additional writers, including Oscar winner Paul Haggis (“Crash”), hammered away at it. The actor began studying the previous “Terminator” films and launched into a brutal training regimen with retired special-ops soldiers. But before he would hop on a plane for the set in New Mexico, there was one last matter: choosing his co-star.
The character of Marcus Wright might be the flashiest role in the film — flashier even than Bale’s John Connor. Wright is a new member of the ragtag uprising against Skynet. Very little is known about him besides his mission to protect Anton Yelchin’s Kyle Reese (played in the 1984 original by Michael Biehn). In other words, Wright had to be both badass and mysterious.
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Christian Bale’s career
“It’s the only role where I said, ‘I really need to have approval over that one,’” says Bale. “And when I saw Sam, I said, ‘F---, yes!’”
Sam Worthington is a gruff, 32-year-old Australian who once worked as a bricklayer (read: badass). He’s been in about a dozen movies in his native country, but is unknown here (mysterious).
“I needed someone who could stand up to Christian in a two-shot,” says McG. “So many actors in their early 30s — they’re a little wimpy. But who’s going to win in a fight between Sam and Christian? I don’t know.”
When Bale and Worthington, who’s also the star of “Avatar,” first meet on screen in “Salvation,” it’s the moment of the film — maybe the moment of the summer movie season so far. Says Worthington, “Christian and I have, like, three scenes together, which is good. Because we’re like two runaway trains when we collide.”
In the end, will audiences show up to witness the collision? If McG is going to outrun the shadow of being “McG,” if Bale’s going to be forgiven for his trespasses, and if the pair of “Terminator” sequels that Bale and McG have in mind are going to get greenlit, their movie has to sizzle beyond the air-conditioned confines of the director’s trailer.
Bale is the first to admit that he has no clue which of his films will connect with audiences. But he’s convinced that “Salvation” will click despite the doubters and distractions. “Look, all of the stuff with my behavior and what people f---ing think of McG, none of that should matter a damn to anyone. They just want a damn good movie.”