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Interviews: Christian Bale, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan On The Dark Knight

Written by Robert Sanchez
Saturday, 14 October 2006


During the press day for The Prestige, the IESB along with other journalists, sat down with Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, Hugh Jackman and Michael Caine. It was a genre geek's wet dream. Think about it, Batman, Wolverine, Alfred and Chris and Jonathan Nolan all in one day...there really is a God.


First up, Batman himself, Christian Bale. And what was the first thing on my mind? The Dark Knight of course.

Unlike other superheroes, Batman is lacking in the superhuman power category. He does have incredibly cool high tech gadgets and is physically a worthy opponent, but it's his keen intellect and detective skills that make him truly dangerous. One of the questions I really wanted to ask Bale was if we would see any of Batman's infamous detective work, something that was lacking in the origin story, in the sequel The Dark Knight.

Check out Christian Bale in his own words below

CB: I believe in him [Batman/Bruce Wayne] as a real character instead of this sort of ridiculous animated personality. So I think that again I was able to kind of stay under the radar a bit more.

Q: Will you be going much further into his psychology in the next movie?

CB: I have no idea, I've spoken with Chris [Nolan] about it but I haven't read anything yet. I trust him completely. I am sure he's going to be coming up with something improved upon our first one. We also has the knowledge that everybody has confidence in what we are trying to do now. The first one worked, people embraced it and beyond that, you know, Chris [Nolan] is just a real solid foundation, you don't have to worry to much about, is he going to come up with the goods? He is. You know, to me also in the way he adjusted the book [The Prestige] to the movie, you know, I just love what he did with it. The twists and turns he's added there, the take that he found interesting. He's one of the best around. So, I've got total trust in him and I've got no problem, if I turn up and read the script a week before we start. I mean, look, of course I would love to be able to talk to him more and we will about the actual character, where we can take that and where we want to take him, etcetera. I enjoy this sort of air of secrecy about it and I don't mind not being right there in the inner circle until Chris decides, yeah, you need to be there now, you need to know about it and he needs my input as well. And so far, that hasn't happened.

IESB: Are you hoping to go into the detective side of Batman or to stay with the action side of it?

CB: You know what, I have no clue what we are going to be doing, I haven't really paid a lot of thought to it. I'll pay a lot of thought to it once Chris [Nolan] sits me down and tells me what he's trying to acheive for the next one. When I sit in the safety vault (smiling) and read the script, you know, being monitored on both sides and then I'll know more. I'll move forward with it from there. But, before that, I am truly not thinking about it.

Chris was really a fabulous guy. And we really appreciated his time.

Next, we got to speak with Christopher Nolan. While he was talking about The Prestige, he made the comment that he doesn't even think about casting anyone until the script is completely done. So, that really begged the question regarding Heath Ledger's casting, is The Dark Knight script finished?!

The IESB jumped at the chance to ask -

IESB: You said you don't think aobut casting until you've finished a script, but you cast Heath Ledger [as Joker], so does that mean that The Dark Knight script is actually finished?

CN: Umm, no it doesn't, what it means is that we finished constructing that character and so we were able to sorta think about that. You know, his cast was a series of fortunate events, he expressed an interest. I hadn't really thought that he would be interested in doing it but it was worth a try so it was actually a very early conversation. Then, you know, we realized we were seeing the same character.

IESB: You also said that Harvey Dent will be in the new film, but does that mean that Two Face will be in the film?

CN: I couldn't say, you'll find out.

Q: How much have you written?

CN: You want to know what page I'm on? I wouldn't tell the studio that, I'm not going to tell you that (laughter). What I will say is it's coming along.

Q: Even Chris [Bale] has said that even he hasn't had a conversation about what the next [Batman] movie is going to be about. How important is it to keep it with [David] Goyer, your brother [Jonathan Nolan] and yourself before releasing it to executives...

CN: We keep it very close to the chest. I mean, we, it's part of the process. We've been working on the script for a long time, over a year now one way or another with David Goyer and my brother, but it has to be right. We are almost finished.

IESB: Are we going to see the detective side of Batman in this one?

CN: I can't really say any more about it (laughter).

Q: It will be darker than the first one?

CN: To be honest, I really don't think in those terms, the story will be what the story is and it will be for you guys to say whether it is or not. I honestly don't think of it like that.

IESB: How close are we to heairng who Harvey Dent is going to be?

CN: I don't know who is going to him and I am the only person who would know so...I don't know

IESB: Are we a couple months away?

CN: I don't know, we'll have to know fairly soon I suppose is what you are asking. We're shooting in February so...

Christopher was very kind and happily tried to answer what he could regarding The Dark Knight. Next we spoke with Jonathan Nolan brother to Chris and writer on The Dark Knight.

IESB: So who is the bigger comic book fan prior to Batman was it you or him [Chris Nolan]?

JN: You know it's funny, I have told this story a couple of times at the risk of sounding like I am repeating myself, when I was 14 years old, my brother, I was not a big comic book fan when I was a kid, a little bit of this a little bit of that, but Chris gave me a copy of Dark Knight returns for my birthday when I was 14 and that was it. That was the only superhero that I was interested in. Fifteen years later to the day, last year we went to the premiere of Batman Begins, which I worked on sort of on and off, not as a writer but as a consultant. It was really, really cool to be there because Batman is really the only, well, as you know he's the best superhero. For me he was the only superhero, so to work on that sort of material doesn't happen often but when it does happen you just feel very, very lucky.

Q: How much of The Dark Knight are you involved in, are you heavily involved as a co-writer?

JN: I wrote my draft, now Chris is...

Q: What can you tell us about your draft?

JN: There's actually a Warner Brothers team of ninjas that will double execute me if I say anything about the script.

Q: Is it darker than the original one?

JN: The name says it all.

Q: So it's definately darker

JN: The name says it all, definately right.

IESB: I've asked all of them and I want to ask you the same thing, Batman is a detective in the comic books, are we going to see that side of him in the next film? Are you hoping to see the detective side?

JN: Wouldn't that be great. That would be fantastic. I would love that, that would be wonderful. (smiling)

Q: I was curious, you turned in your draft, now how does it work when the two of you write together? Is it very much a question of, you turn in a draft, he looks at it, rewrites and comes back to you and then you come up with other ideas...

JN: The way it's worked on all the films, we tried at one point for like a day to try and write together and that wasn't working. We tend to work on...separate drafts, both Chris and I think of writing as a sort of tortured solitary existence which is probably how you arrive at the best material but then the process that we found that works very well is you go off and lose your mind and write the draft and come back in and then the other guy says, this sucks, you know, and you have to sort of fight for the ideas that are good. It tends to be the case that the best stuff from each of the films are the ones that we argued about, the ones that went back and forth, but yeah, I'll write a draft, he'll write a draft...

IESB: Now Goyer is also a part of this writing team isn't he?

JN: Yes.

IESB: So is he also coming up with a draft or is he just putting notes in?

JN: At this point, Dave's a really busy dude, a really busy guy, we're very lucky to be able to get him to collaborate with Chris on the story. So those guys gave me the s....I wish I could tell you all about it because it's awesome, they gave me this awesome story...

Q: Which is what (laughing)?

JN: My job was really easy because they just gave me this fantastic story and I just sort of put it together. But we were lucky to get David [Goyer] but he's been super, super busy so I don't know how it's going to work from here on out.

IESB: So Chris writes, David writes and they both direct. When are we going to see you crossover and direct a comic book?

JN: Yeah, right? I am still concentrating on, I think I still have a lot to learn about the writing and I do have an interest in directing but I really want to nail the writing part first.

Filming on The Dark Knight is set to begin in February 2007 with a June 2008 release date scheduled.


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