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Christian Bale tells George Clooney to 'stop whining' about fame in melodramatic detail

Batman takes on Batman and his attitude to paparazzi hounding

Jenn Selby
Tuesday 02 December 2014 12:39 GMT
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Christian Bale, one of Hollywood’s angriest men (at least when Tarantino’s on holiday), prefers not to bemoan the status afforded to him by his chosen profession.

Unlike, he claims, fellow former Batman George Clooney, who got whole laws passed in Italy to prevent paparazzi from accessing his wedding to Amal Alamuddin in Venice in September.

“It doesn't matter that [Clooney] talks about [the paparazzi],” Bale tells the latest issue of WSJ magazine.

“It's like, ‘Come on, guys, just shut up. Just get on with it and live your lives and stop whining about it.’ I prefer not to whine about it.”

George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin are surrounded by media and security boats as they tour the Grand Canal after leaving their hotel
George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin are surrounded by media and security boats as they tour the Grand Canal after leaving their hotel (AP)

Bale then proceeds to whine about it. In the most melodramatic form possible.

“I was in Italy with my wife,” he regaled the interviewer.

“I would go to work; she would leave the hotel. There would be a man who stood outside... And say the most obscene things imaginable to my wife... I know what he's after; he has a strategy there.

“Am I able to say I'm not gonna give him that satisfaction of angry Christian Bale coming after this man? But equally, he's killing my humanity and my dignity as a husband if I do not, and he knows this. So you've got a choice.”

Yes, you read that correctly. “Killing my humanity and my dignity as a husband.”

His comments come weeks after Bale upset a number of religious fans when he described the prophet Moses as “barbaric” and a possible schizophrenic”.

“I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life,” Bale, who plays the Biblical character in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming Exodus: Of Gods and Kings, told the Hollywood Reporter.

“He was a very troubled, tumultuous man and mercurial,” he said. “But the biggest surprise was the nature of God. He was equally very mercurial.”

He also admitted to not really knowing anything about Moses before he took on the role.

Reading the Torah, he said, “took a bit of time” also.

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