If you've only seen five Christian Bale films, odds are you've probably seen first hand what he's willing to do to himself for a role. Even if you've only seen him in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, you will have seen how he transforms physically.
He's one of Hollywood's experts in physical transformation and joins actors like Russell Crowe, who constantly gains and losing weight for roles, and Jared Leto, who's done the same for pretty much every single film he's ever been in.
Some say Bale goes a little too far sometimes, especially for films like The Machinist and Vice, where he played an over-weight Dick Cheney, but Bale was quite happy to gain and lose weight repeatedly for his films. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done it, right?
There's only been one occasion where Bale didn't quite give filmmakers the desired body type they were looking for. The weight Bale gained for American Hustle wasn't exactly the same weight he needed to be for his next film, Exodus: Gods and Kings. Filmmakers were not happy with how he looked when he strolled onto set the first day, and it almost got him fired. Thankfully Moses was able to part the Red Sea in the end.
He Had To Gain 43 Pounds For 'American Hustle'
Bale is used to losing two-thirds of his body weight for one film and gaining it all back and then some for another, and vice versa. Sometimes for consecutive films that have shooting schedules back to back.
But he didn't quite have time to go through his method in between American Hustle and Exodus: Gods and Kings. It's easy if he goes from skinny to chunky because he can just get prosthetics to add on the extra pounds that he couldn't get in time. But going from chunky to buff is a little harder, especially since Bale isn't getting any younger.
For 2004's The Machinist, Bale lost 63 pounds, living off a diet of apples, coffee, and cigarettes. For Dicky Eklund in 2010's The Fighter, Bale once again lost weight to play a boxer-turned-drug addict. But it was worth it; he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role. In between, he maintained a buff physique for the first two Batman films.
But in 2013, Bale had to gain 43 pounds for the '70s con man-turned-FBI agent Irving Rosenfeld, in American Hustle, the most weight he'd gained for a film ever.
"I ate lots of doughnuts, a whole lot of cheeseburgers, and whatever I could get my hands on. I literally ate anything that came my way," Bale told People. "I was about 185 and went up to 228."
You can't really see the dramatic difference in body weight from The Dark Knight Rises to American Hustle when Irving has his clothes on, but when he takes his suit off, you really notice the change. Bale's wife didn't mind the weight, but his eight-year-old daughter thought it was funny at the time.
"She found it funny," he said. "Having a big old gut and a bald head, she would slap it and tease me. She had lots of fun and found it amusing."
Even though she thought it was funny, she and her father were sad that they lost their wrestling partner.
"Because part of the thing I love is running around playing with my daughter: wrestling, climbing...And I couldn't do it. I felt horrible," Bale told Esquire in 2014 after he'd lost the weight. "You do appreciate it when you get back to a place where you can spend time on a trampoline and not feel like you're going to die."
In December of 2013, Bale told People that he was still trying to lose the weight he gained for the film. Which was not good because he was supposed to play a very buff Moses in Exodus: Gods and Kings very shortly.
"I think I'm certainly getting older," Bale told USA Today. "I thought I was going to lose the weight I gained for American Hustle. I said, two months, flat, that'll do it. I was 185 and I went up to 228 for it. And I'm still working that off! It's almost six months later. Now I know that when I was in my early 20s, it would have been two months, and that's it."
He Had To Do A Lot of Cardio
Unfortunately for Bale, he didn't quite burn the fat from his body in time for Exodus: Gods and Kings in time. It took him longer than he thought because he realized he wasn't in his '20s anymore. But looking at Bale in the film, you can hardly notice that he'd had a massive beer belly months before. Not him though, he was able to spot the inaccuracies in his physique immediately.
"If you look closely, you can see my left arm is skinnier than my right. You really can," Bale told Esquire. "Because I hadn't been able to use it for a long time. I lost all my use. It was just a limp thing hanging."
Bale had a motorcycle accident at the end of 2012 that left him with nerve damage, so he favored his right arm in Exodus. He was glad for his costume in the film because it could cover his lingering gut from American Hustle.
His weight from the previous film almost cost him his role in Exodus altogether. He was able to slim down in the end and use his right arm perfectly. Apparently, Moses has to be buff to free the slaves from Eygpt.
If Bale thought losing the weight he gained for American Hustle was bad, he should have talked to his future self, who gained another 40 pounds to play Dick Cheney in Vice in 2018. After that role, he said goodbye to gaining weight for films, a solid life choice and one that Batman would be proud of.