Morning Man Encore: Christian Bale!

Originally posted Dec. 21, 2010 – updated

For a man who is so good looking Christian Bale has taken more than his share of character parts that require him to look far from his matinee idol best.

One of those roles, as Mark Wahlberg’s brother in The Fighter, earned Bale his first Academy Award nomination – and a win! He is getting Oscar buzz again for two films: Out of the Furnace and American Hustle.

Nice to see the 39-year-old actor now getting recognition after being ignored by the Academy for performances in such films as American Psycho and The Machinist.

He’s willing to become emaciated for a role or to become a buffed-out superhero and transform into Batman in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises.

Christian has been acting in major films since he was a teenager. He was just 13 when he starred in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun then went on to star as a teen in the Disney musical Newsies followed by Swing Kids.

He first got my attention in the 1994 film Little Women because by then he had grown into a very handsome young man. Before breaking through as a star, Christian played gay in the glam rock film Velvet Goldmine then two years later, in 1999, starred as a sexy and creepy serial killer in American Psycho.

Of Christian’s performance in that breakthrough film, critic Roger Ebert wrote: Of Bale’s performance, he wrote, “Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor.”

So much has followed since including Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Rescue Dawn, The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, Public Enemies and Terminator Salvation among others.

He’s now filming Exodus. He plays Moses.