Christian Bale has been pretty smart about choosing movie roles. Not all of them — *cough, cough, Exodus: Gods and Kings — but most of them, anyway. He hasn’t landed every part he’s gone after, however. Sometimes due to being difficult to work with and sometimes because he was bested by his Hollywood nemesis — Leonardo DiCaprio.
The actor is celebrating a birthday — he turns 41 today — and to mark the occasion we’re looking back at a few roles the actor turned down and a few that he shot for and missed.
1. Titanic (1997) — In 2012, Bale’s former publicist, Harrison Cheung, released a tell-all book and revealed that for around a decade Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio pretty much hated each other. It started when Bale lost What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and carried on through Romeo + Juliet (Bale actually auditioned for the part of Mercutio, which went to Harold Perrineau, but Leo was in the movie and that really burned Bale up). Perhaps the biggest upset, though, was losing the part of Jack in Titanic. James Cameron simply didn’t want two Brits playing two leads that were supposed to be American.
2. Three Kings (1999) — Director David O. Russell had always wanted his buddy Spike Jonze for the part of Conrad Vig, but agreed to meet with Bale to satisfy the studio even though he had no intention of hiring the actor. The director later recounted talking with Bale during The Fighter and how much he offended the actor years earlier.
“He said ‘You were very insulting to me’ and I asked ‘How was I insulting?’ and he said ‘You told me to speak like Macaulay Culkin.’ And I remembered there was a reason for that, because he came in with his Batman voice.”
3. The Rules of Attraction (2002) — Bale’s ax-swinging character Patrick Bateman makes a brief cameo in Bret Easton Ellis’ book Rules of Attraction when Sean Bateman calls his brother in New York. The film adaptation of American Psycho was such a hit that both the studio and Ellis wanted to work Bale into the film version of Rules. Bale turned down the cameo and Casper Van Dien provided the voice on the other end of the line instead.
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) — Bale was considered for the part of Will Turner along with Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, and Tobey Maguire, but ultimately the producers plucked Orlando Bloom off the wave of popularity he was riding from the Lord of the Rings films.
5. Syriana (2005) — Director Stephen Gaghan wanted Bale to play Bryan Woodman, but Bale had to turn down the part because he was already committed to exploring The New World with Colin Farrell. Matt Damon, of course, went on to take the part.
6. W. (2008) — Oliver Stone had originally cast Bale to play President Bush, but the actor wasn’t happy with the prosthetic makeup he had to wear and left to fight robots in Terminator Salvation, with Josh Brolin picking up the slack.
7. Robin Hood (2010) — Ridley Scott wanted Bale to star in his big budget adaptation of Robin Hood and was still in talks with the actor up until the week before costume fittings began. But for whatever reason, Bale dropped out. Sam Riley was briefly considered for the part before the bow and arrows were ultimately handed to Russell Crowe.
Bonus Batman Forever (1995) — For a while, it was rumored that Bale had auditioned to play Batman’s sidekick, Robin. Bale doesn’t do Robin, though. Bale only does Batman. He has vehemently denied the possibility of ever wanting to play the part of Boy Wonder.
“I love the crap that is on the internet and on TV – everywhere – it’s not just on the Net,” he tells Shortlist. “Most of the time I never bother trying to put anything right because I’m an actor, and the whole point is it doesn’t matter what’s the truth. But I do have to take a stand on that because I would never have bloody auditioned to play Robin. It wasn’t a lucky escape because I would never have got myself in that position in the first place.”
But if Bale had played Robin…
