Christian Bale Talks ‘Terminator’ Tirade

Christian Bale, while promoting his new film “Terminator Salvation,” spoke to Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell about his July 2008 blow up on the set of the film, which became public after an audio recording was released in February.

When O’Dell broached the topic of the on-set explosion that Bale directed towards “Terminator Salvation” director of photography, Shane Hurlbut, Bale jokingly said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

O’Dell asked Bale, from an actor’s perspective, how the incident affected trust issues on the set.

“I’ll get to feel comfortable again… the trust is not set up for covering up bad behavior, that’s not the reason that it’s set up,” Bale responded. “It’s set up for creative experimentation, so that you can do things, make a fool of yourself, and understand that there is a circle of trust with people — that they’re not gonna use that to make fun of you because of efforts that you’ve made that just didn’t work [or] that backfired or whatever. But the [trust] I stress, it ain’t for covering up bad behavior.”

Bale said that after having spent nearly three months on the “Terminator Salvation” set, he did not want the four-minute incident to overshadow the film. And it led him to call into KROQ’s Kevin & Bean breakfast show after the tape was first leaked.

“You think about the numbers of days we shot on that movie — 77 days, everything going well. What’s being focused on is four minutes where I behaved bad, you know,” Bale said.

“I didn’t want that to overshadow the hard work of everybody on the crew, in every aspect, you know? So I felt like I had to say something. Well, I felt like I had to say something so that we wouldn’t have to sit here talking about it right now,” he laughed.

O’Dell asked Bale if the incident changed how people viewed him and Bale said he had no idea.

“I don’t even think about that,” he said. “I don’t really have an awareness of what anybody’s perception of me is, I don’t like to. I like being oblivious to that because it allows me just to get on with whatever project I’m doing.”

While he doesn’t worry about what others think of him, he appreciates those that came to his defense following the release of his rant.

“I very much appreciate the people who did say that… Still doesn’t excuse it, but I do appreciate it,” he said.

“Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG and starring Bale, Sam Worthington and Bryce Dallas Howard opens May 21 in theaters.