Clip 1 - On Batman
“I think Batman is probably more aggressive than most everybody I've ever played, you know. And I wanted to take it, because, firstly, when I heard that there was a consideration of doing more of the movies, I just felt like I hadn't been quite satisfied with what I'd seen in the other movies. Certainly in the last two. And it seemed as though there was actually a real character here, that it wasn't just a bland kind of superhero, one-dimensional. That with him there really was an interesting character to be played. I loved the kind of fantastical notion of the superhero, but at the same time being able to bring a psychologically interesting element to that. And then Chris Nolan is directing who, you know, is not a director I would have expected to do this movie. So that was ideal to me, I liked the fact that the people hiring Chris, hiring myself, were going with people who did want to reinvent the story and have it not just be a continuation."
Clip 2 - On losing weight for "The Machinist"
"Yeah, there was a certain amount of concern that if I was doing it – you know, wisely or not, certainly my wife was very concerned about it… But I felt fine the whole time. It altered my mind-set, because you go through a great deal of irritability to start with (hunger, etc) but then you kind of go through that and come out, and I found myself being incredibly calm and peaceful. It just became impossible to make me angry in any way. But it still means that you have to remove yourself from any kind of social situations because they almost always involve a drink or food. And just putting yourself in that temptation at all, you know, you can’t afford a little nibble or something because then you just go, “Oy!”…you taste it and you want it more. So it did require a lot of solitude. And that was the essential thing really. Because that was what I realized in the beginning, that when I first started trying to diet, it just wasn’t working because I was still socializing. So…that was…I just said “Look, I just got to cut it out. I just can’t be hanging out with people at all.” And then it was just a matter of gradually eating less and less and less and less each day. And when you feel hunger pangs, just kind of trying to convince myself that that was signaling something else. Like what I would do was when I would start feeling very hungry, I would treat it as though it meant that I really wanted to read. You know? So, I would get a book and just try to calm my mind into thinking that was giving me the nourishment that I needed, etc. And it works! -- you know, you really have to kind of play mind games with yourself."
Clip 3 - On being a bit different and how people relate to that
"Umm, I think that’s a human condition. You know?… just the fact that being alive is confusing and difficult to know that anybody else understands you at any point. And I think, especially for most people, during teenage years. I had that, I think, even more so in teenage years because I also had already started working. And so I’d had experiences in things which absolutely nobody else could relate to whatsoever. And I did kind of find myself somewhat excluded from being able to just be “one of the guys” in school because I’d kind of stepped out and, you know, people don’t always allow you back in because they think you’re different at that point. So, yeah, I’ve certainly experienced that sense of, you know, exclusion from groups, etc. But also I’ve always kind of been somebody that… I think through the nature of how I grew up (we moved around an awful lot) and also through being an actor, you find yourself in many different parts of the world where you don’t know anybody, etc. You know, I’m quite a loner, and I can spend an awful lot of time by myself and be completely happy."