In an interview, Christian Bale expressed his dissatisfaction with his portrayal of Batman in The Dark Knight films. Part of the blame for this was his fellow actor Heath Ledger, who, in his opinion, surpassed him with his role as the Joker.
Christian Bale played the role of the dark knight in the “The Dark Knight” trilogy and thus the main role.
Although the film is celebrated by fans and was even considered the best superhero film in history for a long time, the actor expressed dissatisfaction with his performance in an interview with Yahoo in March 2016.
Here is a trailer for the 2nd film in the “The Dark Knight” trilogy:
German trailer for Batman The Dark Knight
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“He’s so much more interesting than me.”
Christian Bale told Yahoo that he didn’t perform as well as he originally hoped in the films. He was also plagued by the feeling that he wasn’t quite hitting the mark with his Batman impersonation.
Especially when his fellow actor Heath Ledger († January 2008) joined the cast as the villain Joker in the second film of the trilogy, the leading actor had the feeling that he would get lost next to his colleague:
“Heath showed up and ruined all my plans. Because I thought, ‘He’s so much more interesting than me and what I do.’
Christian Bale, Source: Yahoo
In another interview with GQ, Christian Bale emphasized that he had no grudge against his colleague. Instead, he only had words of praise for Heath Ledger.
He was not only a great actor who was fully committed to his role, but also a good person with whom he had a lot of fun on set.
You can read about why Christian Bale was almost radioactively contaminated during a fantasy film shoot here from our colleagues at Moviepilot.
Although Christian Bale had mixed feelings about the films, he was grateful for the opportunity to play one of the most well-known comic book heroes, as he told Variety in a December 2017 interview:
“[…] That changed everything. It was the first time I made a film of this magnitude. This was a real learning curve for me. I struggled with this for a long time. I still do that occasionally. But I’m learning to accept the good things.”
Marco from Nerdkultur explains to you in one of his video essays why the beginning of director Christopher Nolan’s Batman film is so brilliant: Then you’ll see the beginning of “The Dark Knight” with different eyes