Many actors have found it difficult working on green screen studios, acting around scenery and characters that just are not there. Christian Bale experienced a fair amount of green screen work while playing Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder, and it is not unfair to say that he hated the experience. Having previously worked on many “real world” movies, Bale has not often been found working with green screen locations, and that proved to be “the definition of monotony” for the Academy Award winner.
Thor: Love and Thunder delivered some fantastic worlds that were visually created with CGI and added to the film in post-production, leaving the actors working mostly on green and blue screen studios without any real idea of where they were meant to be. While some Marvel productions have made use of The Volume, a studio that comes with LED screens that is able to put actors in computer-generated worlds and remove the use of the green screen. For Bale, though, it was classic green screen all the way on Thor: Love and Thunder, and he really wasn’t comfortable with it. Bale told GQ:
“That’s the first time I’ve done that. I mean, the definition of it is monotony. You’ve got good people. You’ve got other actors who are far more experienced at it than me. Can you differentiate one day from the next? No. Absolutely not. You have no idea what to do. I couldn’t even differentiate one stage from the next. They kept saying, “You’re on Stage Three.” Well, it’s like, “Which one is that?” “The blue one.” They’re like, “Yeah. But you’re on Stage Seven.” “Which one is that?” “The blue one.” I was like, “Uh, where?"
Christian Bale Found It Easier Playing Gorr Than Batman
Despite his clear dislike of the green screen, Christian Bale did find playing Gorr a much easier experience than when playing his iconic superhero role of Batman, mainly due to the way audiences react to movie villains. He previously said:
“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.”
Christian Bale is one of the most highly regarded actors to enter the MCU, and while his take on Gorr was not the monstrous creature that appears in the comic books, he was certainly a star turn for his relatively short screen time. Over his career, Bale has had a taste of playing both heroes and villains, and even some that sit on a teetering fence between the two, but when it comes to his MCU appearance, he certainly had no problems becoming the bad guy once again.
Thor: Love and Thunder is currently streaming on Disney+, and available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray.