Former Dark Knight trilogy star Christian Bale jokingly thanked Satan for helping inspire his role of Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s political dramedy Vice, which won Bale the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy.
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“Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration for playing this role,” the Batman star said to laughs during his acceptance speech.
Bale also offered praise to McKay, remarking, “He said, ‘I have to find somebody that can be absolutely charisma free and reviled by everybody, so we wanted Christian Bale.’”
The Church of Satan has since tweeted its support of the recognition, writing, “To us, Satan is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. As Mr. Bale’s own talent and skill won him the award, this is fitting. Hail Christian! Hail Satan!”
The Church also hailed Bale’s iteration of the caped crusader as “the best Batman ever.”
Also, Bale’s Dark Knight era Batman is the best Batman ever. pic.twitter.com/RAG8GxaKSy
— The Church Of Satan (@ChurchofSatan) January 7, 2019
The star further joked the next political figure he’ll tackle is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
More seriously, Bale thanked his children and wife Sibi Blazic, present in the audience, who “knows the dumb crap that can come out of my mouth at times.”
“I can sink and ruin a perfectly good movie and so-so career in one speech,” Bale said. “So thank you for that advice, my love.”
Bale beat out Viggo Mortensen (Green Book), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns), John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie) and Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun) for the prize.
“What Christian Bale really does is he psychologically breaks someone apart and puts them back together again,” McKay told Deadline of Bale’s performance, which saw the actor gain 40 pounds when stepping into the role of the former U.S. vice president.
“I’ve never seen someone work so hard at it, and it is hard on him, but really amazing to watch. The second I thought of doing the movie, I knew right away, the most exciting person to play him is Christian.”
Bale previously told Interview the role saw him additionally take on “as much research as I’ve ever had to do for any other film.”
“Adam likes a lot of improvisation, and when you’re playing Mr. Cheney, you need to not only speak in the vernacular that he would speak in, but all the policies that he would be aware of and instances of them, the abbreviations for all of them, and be able to just go with it,” Bale said. “So it was very fascinating for me.”
