Christian Bale explains why playing a villain like Thor 4’s Gorr the God Butcher is easier than playing a hero like Batman. Bale has played a wide range of characters over the course of his long career in the movies. That includes taking the plunge into the world of comic book movies on several notable occasions.
Bale of course will always be best known among superhero fans for playing Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s wildly successful Dark Knight trilogy. But this year, Bale got a taste of what’s on the other side of the superhero fence in two notable ways. Firstly, the star known for playing DC’s Batman made the leap to the MCU, joining Thor: Love and Thunder as Gorr the God Butcher. Secondly, instead of playing the hero this time, Bale got to sink his teeth into the character who serves as Thor 4’s terrifying and powerful bad guy.
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Now that he’s tasted big screen life on both sides of the good-bad divide, Bale has a great idea of which he enjoys playing more. As he revealed exclusively to Screen Rant, Bale prefers playing bad guys not only because it’s more fun, but because in his estimation it’s actually easier. Check out Bale’s remarks in the space below:
They do, absolutely. They not only have more fun, but they're easier to play. Because everybody is fascinated with bad guys, right? The minute the bad guy walks on the screen, no one's looking at the good guy anymore. All eyes go to the bad guy, so it's a much easier acting gig.
Thor: Love & Thunder Changed Gorr the God Butcher From the Comics – and It Was the Right Choice
Fans were excited when Bale was announced to be joining the MCU as Gorr the God Butcher. But excitement turned to annoyance for some as details of Thor: Love and Thunder's Gorr depiction fully came to light. Shown as a very alien creature in the pages of comic books, Gorr was radically changed for the Thor movie, becoming much more recognizably human and in many ways much less strange.
Fans of the original Marvel Comics depiction of Gorr were indeed vocal in expressing their displeasure with the alterations that were made to the character for his debut in the MCU. But Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige recently spoke out to defend the reasoning behind the Gorr changes. According to Feige, making Gorr comics-accurate in Love and Thunder would have required extensive use of motion-capture and CGI. And taking that approach would have had the negative effect of diminishing Bale’s ability to give a fully-rounded performance.
Choosing to change Gorr the God Butcher’s design was in essence a choice of performance over accuracy. And ultimately it was the correct choice. A CGI-heavy Gorr might have more closely resembled the character’s comics appearance, but the world would have missed out on what turned out to be a very strong and complex Bale performance. Gorr as depicted in Thor: Love and Thunder is a grief-stricken man who is given the chance at vengeance, only to come back to his humanity in the end. Allowing Bale to portray this range of emotions, creating a scary but redeemable bad guy, gave the movie an emotional weight that helped balance off its more madcap and comical moments. Bale clearly enjoys playing bad guys, and thankfully Thor 4 afforded him the chance to actually use his acting skills in bringing one to life, instead of leaning on the crutch of CGI.