There's no doubt that Christian Bale has become one of Hollywood's A-list heavyweights. With Bale about to step into the suit of Batman for a second time on July 18 in The Dark Knight before switching gears for his role in Michael Mann's crime drama Public Enemies and then Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, fans can expect to see a lot more of the UK born actor over the next couple fo years. In what might immortalize Christian Bale as the definitive big screen Batman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the highly anticipated comic book film is shaping up to be the biggest hit of the summer, and possibly the year.

With the The Dark Knight only one week out from theaters, a cape-less Christian Bale sat down with the press to talk about Public Enemies, the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, what's happening with Terminator Salvation, wanting an "R" rated Batman, and the impact Heath Ledger had on him while filming.

Is the buzz-cut for Terminator?

CHRISTIAN BALE: Yeah.

You played Pablo Escobar and you’re doing Public Enemies.

BALE: We haven't filmed Killing Pablo, but Public Enemies, yes, I've finished.

So what do you find interesting about law enforcers?

BALE: It's not particularly a law enforcer against criminals. It's first of all just a great story, and then with the character of Melvin Purvis in Public Enemies, he was a fascinating character. You could make a couple of movies just about his life. It's working with Michael Mann who is one of the most thorough and wonderful researchers, and just has such nuance and I think is just such a fine filmmaker. So it's that. It's that more than an attraction to law enforcement.

What were the dimensions in this Batman that attracted you back?

BALE: Well, I knew that Chris [Nolan] had proven his ideas in Batman Begins, so I feel as though he was given more freedom to make exactly the movie that he wished to make for The Dark Knight. He can correct me on that if I'm wrong, but that was my feeling. I know that with Chris, this is our third time we've worked together, that he's not going to bother making another movie if he doesn't feel like he can improve upon the first one. I went to his house, I sat and read the script and felt like he had really nailed just kind of exploding all of the clichés of genre movies; that this was no longer an action movie, this was no longer a superhero movie. This was a movie that can stand shoulder to shoulder with any genre of movie. Of course, we have the resources and the ability to have the spectacle of the stunts and the explosions and all the excitement of that, but not have the compromise of great storytelling. These special effects and explosions, they don't mean crap if they're not in the context of a really great, substantial drama.

Does it hurt your throat to do the Batman voice?

BALE: Not anymore. On the first one, it took me a while to really get accustomed to it, but it's like riding a bike. For the second one, I could just switch on and off any time.

The notes say they worked you hard for 2-3 hours.

BALE: That doesn't sound like working very hard.

Just the workouts and martial arts.

BALE: Oh, right.

Don't you want to sit around and do nothing? Ever tempted to take a breather?

BALE: Absolutely. Maybe there's a temptation to find a role where preparation involves drinking a lot of wine and eating a lot of pasta and just putting on a lot of weight or something, and taking it easy. I think I put my body through enough transformation in the past few years that at my age now, getting to mid-30s, I'm starting to think, "Yeah, I might start to have consequences if I keep doing this to myself too much." I'm starting not to quite feel as invulnerable as I always have, but I enjoy the notion of strenuous work. I like it. I like to know I really worked at something. I don't like, particularly, taking it easy. The thing that I dislike most about filmmaking is waiting, waiting around. You're standing around doing nothing. That's what I dislike.

You said your father is your hero. How? And is your mother also?

BALE: You're getting too personal for me a little bit, but I will give you something. I won't give you everything but I was just never somebody who really gravitated towards needing a hero. I don't know why, I just never was - certainly not any kind of comic book style or anything, or in any other fashion. I had many people who I found intriguing and interesting but my father was just always somebody who was very, very engaging and a real character. So the first time I ever considered that question was being asked it in an interview, and I just sat back and thought, "Well, who have I looked up to most consistently throughout my life? Well, that's my father. Of course."

What was the challenge of playing more suited scenes, not showing your face?

BALE: But I think that there's an opportunity with the body language to show everything there. He's not a guy who feels the suit to be constricting. Wearing the mask and putting on the suit gives him absolute freedom. He feels most free within that because he's free to anonymously let his anger out and his violence out and become that person who he has to hide from the rest of society most of the time. I think that's something that's interesting. He does it in a more extreme fashion, probably, than most of us do but I think everybody has a shadow side to them. We all understand the rules of engagement for civilized society but we're all tempted to break them all the time. And we all are intrigued when we see people happily breaking those rules. With Batman, it's often a very fine line with him crossing the line, going too far.

Fighting Crime with Christian Bale and The Dark Knight Page 2