Christian Bale has opened up about the intense physical and emotional demands behind his transformation into Frankenstein’s monster The bride!and revealed that the process pushed him to some unusual coping methods just to get through the day.
In an interview with Weekly entertainmentthe actor said he spent six hours a day in the makeup chair while working on the film, a remake of the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Bale stars opposite Jessie Buckley, who plays the bride and spent about an hour and a half on makeup for her own transformation.
Reflecting on the grueling routine, Bale admitted the long hours of enforced silence took a toll.
“I would scream like crazy every day. Just to [release the] despair, all the restraint that you have to show when you sit still for so long,” he said, explaining how he stopped himself “from going insane” in the process.
However, these screams were carefully timed.
Bale said he avoided doing it on the way to work, worried it might distract him behind the wheel, and ruled out screaming alone because it could be easily misunderstood.
Instead, what began as a private release eventually became a shared ritual on set.
“Oh man, I’m telling you, the whole crew got involved at the end because people wanted to hear us scream,” Bale said.
“We opened the doors and gradually, kind of like the Bride’s Revolution, there were people who said, ‘Can we do it too?’ And then eventually, there were about 30 people who wanted to hear us and run to the makeup trailer to be a part of it and scream too.”
The role adds another extreme chapter to Bale’s long history of physical transformations.
Over the years, he has been known to radically alter his body for characters, from bulking up on a strict protein-heavy diet to American Psycho to shed 60 pounds over four months to reach 120 pounds for The mechanic.
For that film, his daily intake reportedly consisted of “water, an apple and a cup of coffee a day.”
Not long after, Bale went in the opposite direction, gaining about 100 pounds of muscle in just six months to play Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Batman beginscementing his reputation for total physical commitment.
The bride! is set to open in theaters on March 6, distributed by Warner Bros.
