Christian Bale is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Gorr the God Butcher in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, and it’s not his first foray into the comic book genre. He was Bruce Wayne in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, and he knocked that role out of the park. But bringing Gorr to life is a bit different because of how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown.
That doesn’t seem to be a problem for Bale, though, who supposedly didn’t know what the Marvel Cinematic Universe was when asked outright about joining the franchise. It’s both not surprising and also very telling about how Bale looks at roles that, instead of thinking about how he views “superhero” movies and their effects on movies, he looks at characters and the arc he’d get to play.
In a new interview with Games Radar, Bale was asked if he had any reservations about joining another superhero franchise, but he was quick to dismiss the “worries” and said that he didn’t have any. In fact, he didn’t know what the MCU was. “Absolutely not, no. That didn’t even enter into my head at all,” he said. “I’d read that, and people would go, ‘Oh, look at this! He’s entered the MCU!’ And I’d go, ‘I’ve done what? I haven’t entered shit, thank you very much.’ I’m like, ‘The MCU?’ I had to ask what that was.”
Bale’s take on Gorr
Throughout the interview, we also got a look into what Bale was told about Gorr. When asked what helped him prepare for the role, he said that he started to base his performance on what director Taika Waititi said about Gorr. “There’s obviously sort of a Nosferatu slight attitude. Taika and I wanted to do a whole dance, which we didn’t get to do, but we had all this sort of Kate Bush stuff that we worked at. But I think he just realised he was never going to be allowed to put that in the final film. I would say that the most common thing I was staring at was the Aphex Twin video of ‘Come To Daddy’. But I don’t even know if that will be in the final film.”
He went on to talk about how the character changed from his own initial thoughts, as well. “You sort of go, ‘I know what he does.’ It’s right there in the name, isn’t it? But I did make the mistake of Googling him and, oh no! [In the comics] he runs around in a G-string all the time,” Bale said, “and I thought, ‘They don’t have the right man for that!’ And then Taika quickly dispelled any notions of running around in that. But I always did think what he could do with this in front of a bluescreen – he could chuck on whatever he wants later on.”
It’s going to be delightful to see Bale return to his villainous ways (said by the biggest American Psycho fan around), and I am so excited to see what his take on Gorr ends up being. Hopefully someone explained what the MCU is to him by now, though.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
