The MCU has been successful in luring many of Hollywood’s top names to its expansive playground. While getting Robert Redford and Glenn Close to star in a film is no small feat, none saw Christian Bale as the villain in this year’s Thor: Love and Thunder coming. Bale praised Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi’s first Thor film, but acknowledged that working on Love and Thunder might become boring in a new feature for GQ. Bale, known for his ability to shift into any role, gave the otherwise silly film Love and Thunder an air of solemnity with his chameleonic performance.
Having had a crisis of faith after the death of his daughter, his evil Gorr The God Butcher embarks on a suicide mission of sorts to wipe out all the gods in the cosmos. Bale claimed that Love and Thunder was not the place for some Method acting, despite the film’s serious depiction of Gorr’s objectives. Bale claimed on Good Morning America in 2018 that he had previously denied being a Method actor since it required understanding Stanislavski’s techniques. I just kind of wing it, he’d added. However, Bale told GQ that he didn’t think it would have been funny if he’d gone Method on Love and Thunder, what with him having to get used to the fangs in his teeth and constantly tripping over his tunic.
Also, he confessed that the extensive usage of the green screen on Love and Thunder left him feeling disoriented at times. Using his own words: To quote the speaker, “It’s the first time I’ve ever done that. To put it another way, the very definition of monotony is boredom. You have a good team working for you. There are other performers on your team with far more experience than I do. Do you know how to tell one day from another? No. No way, no how. You’re completely at a loss. Not being able to tell one act from another. You’re already in Stage Three, they kept saying. In such a case, it’s a matter of asking, “Which one is that?” The blue one, like in. They agree and say, “Yeah.” However, you are now on Stage Seven. What is that? It’s “the blue one.” Where? I questioned.
LED StageCraft “volume,” made popular by Disney+’s The Mandalorian, was used extensively during the filming of Love and Thunder in Australia. In reality, the entire book was shot by Bale himself, including the opening oasis sequence in which Gorr transforms into the God Butcher, as reported by IndieWire. However, Bale isn’t the only actor to gripe about the monotony of working on the Thor films. Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, told Vanity Fair that he was “bored” of the character before Taika Waititi revitalised the franchise. Actor Idris Elba, who plays Heimdall, described the reshoots for Thor: The Dark World as “pain” in an interview with The Telegraph.
While both Love and Thunder and Ragnarok were commercially successful, the latter was more well praised. Over $760 million was made internationally, but the picture and its director, Taika Waititi, were panned by critics. Bale will appear in two films this year: the historical comedy Amsterdam and the gothic horror The Pale Blue Eye.