Christian Bale Gets Mean During Profane Tirade On-set

Christian Bale, who played the Dark Knight in the most recent Batman movie, is currently working on the film "Terminator Salvation" and recently had a dark meltdown of his own exposed to the public via an audio tape. A cinematographer bore the brunt of Bale’s outburst, which occurred last July but which just came to light due to that fact that it was caught on audio and released on the website TMZ.com. The tirade includes a prolonged expletive-laden tongue-lashing from Bale. The cinematographer in question, Shane Hurlbut, apparently walked behind co-star Bryce Dallas Howard and into Bale’s line of sight during filming, a big no-no on movie sets the world ‘round.

Bale, rather than merely getting a bit huffy about the incident, went all-out ballistic, showing a dark side the likes of which his Dark Knight character could only dream of. According to the audio recording, Bale yells at Hurlbut, "If you do it one more time I ain’t walking on this set if you’re still hired!" Bale went on to yell, "Do you want me to go and trash your lights? Do you want me to go and trash them? Then why are you trashing my scene?"

Some in the media business have indicated that the incident occurred just a few days before Bale would have faced assault allegations from his mother and sister in London. Those charges were never filed because his family members didn’t wish to pursue to the matter legally and because there was apparently a lack of evidence of any real wrongdoing. Whether that was a particularly tough time in Bale’s life or the actor was showing his true colors remains to be seen, but others in the industry, especially the media, appear to be poised and waiting for the next breakdown.