‘The Dark Knight’ Star Christian Bale Says Heath Ledger ‘Ruined All My Plans’

For fans of the Batman franchises, Christian Bale gave one of the best performances as The Dark Knight, but Bale now says he could have done better. He says that he had an idea about how he wanted to represent Batman, but things didn’t go quite as planned.

No matter what anyone else thinks about The Dark Knight, Bale says he could have given much more.

Christian Bale Talks About The Dark Knight He Wanted To Deliver

Everyone else thinks Bale did an excellent job in bringing the Dark Knight to life on the big screen. The actor says that even director Christopher Nolan was satisfied with everyone’s performances, but the actor himself has been left feeling that he “didn’t quite nail it.”

It was a feeling Christian had from the very beginning, but the villain in the second film really drove that feeling home. The Dark Knight actor says Heath Ledger was so good as the Joker that he stole every scene.

“Heath turned up, and just kind of completely ruined all my plans,” Bale said. “Because I went, ‘He’s so much more interesting than me and what I’m doing.'”

Christian adds that he had a very specific idea about who Bruce Wayne and Batman were, speaking of their distinctive dual personality. He says he felt the character was a dark and disturbed person at his core. He says Batman was Wayne’s inner monster made real.

“I found when I put on the suit, I felt like, ‘I just feel like a bloody idiot if I don’t use this as a means of — it’s kind of his true monstrous self that he allows to come out in that moment,'” said The Dark Knight actor.

Christian Bale Plays A Knight Of Another Sort For Terrence Malick

In Malick’s Knight of Cups, Bale plays a writer on a journey of self-discovery. As he wanders throughout Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Christian Bale’s character learns about life and love through his connections with six women.

Bale says working with Terry on Knight of Cups was a pleasure, adding that the director is incredibly creative, but also very laid back. Those are two traits that don’t often meld together very well in Hollywood directors, but Bale says it works for Malick.

“People would come and be a bit nervous about how he works, and I’d just go up to them and say, ‘It’s all right, don’t worry about it.’ And they’d say they didn’t know all their lines, and I’d go, ‘Don’t worry about it, he doesn’t mind.'”

The Dark Knight actor said that Malick’s relaxed approach to directing made for an enjoyable work experience, but he also said it had made it difficult to go back to work for more traditional directors. On his next film, Christian Bale said he had a hard time getting back into that more formal groove. Right off the bat, he was finding it difficult getting used to hearing the director call “cut,” because Terry never did that. Instead, the Knight of Cups director kept rolling, so there was never that stressful cringe at hearing the call to end the shot.

Bale added that he was scolded for forgetting lines, missing his marks, and ad-libbing lines of his own, which were all things that Malick did nothing to discourage. It created a unique filming experience.

“It’s very different,” said Bale. “But it also leads to a different viewing experience as well.”

Knight of Cups, which also stars Imogen Poots, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Freida Pinto, Cate Blanchett, Isabel Lucas, and Brian Dennehy, opened in theaters on March 4.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]