Christian Bale: “I Ate 50 Bats A Day to Prepare for Batman Begins”

Method actor Christian Bale has revealed that, in order to immerse himself in the role of Batman, he would eat up to 50 bats a day.

“I am one of those actors, and I know some find it pretentious, but I am such an actor that needs to truly become the character and really know them,” explained the star.

“I approached this bat man no different. But how could I truly understand such a fictional and fantastical character? What was the essence of what made this man a bat man. The answer, of course, was bats.

“If I could consume a large number of bats, then I would also become a bat man of sorts myself.”

Initially he just ate some bats for breakfast.

“Generally, I start the day with a bowl of Frosties. They’re grrrrreat. But whilst preparing for Batman Begins, I would pour myself a big bowl of dried bats instead. But I found that wasn’t actually enough, so I took to carrying around a bag of bats as I went about my daily business and would suck on a bat throughout the day as one might a boiled sweet.”

Although it displayed admirable dedication to the craft, eating 50 bats a day did have its drawbacks.

“Well, I caught rabies. Which was rather uncomfortable, and delayed production for several months.”

Ultimately, Christian would not keep up with the practice for the following two films.

“No, I think it was a mistake. It didn’t really give me the insight I’d hoped for into the character of Batman, it just made me feel like I’d eaten a lot of bats.”

Instead, he settled into a far more successful way of immersing himself in the role for the other films.

“I dug a big cave under my house and used it as a base for fighting crime. Really helped.”