Christian Bale revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he spent six hours in the makeup chair in order to transform into Frankenstein’s monster for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” Bale stars in the reimagining of the 1935 film “Bride of Frankenstein” opposite “Hamnet” Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley, who plays the title role. Buckley spent an hour and a half in the makeup chair for her transformation into the Bride.
“I would scream like crazy, every day. Just to [release the] despair, all of that restraint that you have to display when you’re sitting still for that long,” Bale said about how he kept himself “from going insane” amid the six-hour transformation.
“I didn’t want to do it driving into work because I thought I might cause a crash. And I didn’t want to do it by myself because I thought everyone would just think I’m going nuts,” Bale said about screaming. “Oh man, I’m telling you, the whole crew got involved by the end because people would hear us screaming. We would open the doors, and gradually, a bit like the Bride’s revolution, a few people were going, ‘Can we do it too?’ And then by the end, there were like 30 people who would hear us and run to the makeup trailer to be a part of it and scream as well.”
Bale is well known for his intense physical transformations across his acting career. He went on an all-protein diet to bulk up for “American Psycho,” for instance,” and infamously spent four months shedding 60 pounds so he could weigh 120 pounds for “The Mechanist.” His diet for the movie consisted of having “water, an apple, and one cup of coffee per day.” Bale then put on 100 pounds of muscle in six months to play Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.”
“The Bride!” opens in theaters March 6 from Warner Bros. Head over to Entertainment Weekly’s website to read more about the making of the movie.
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