We do see the detective side of Batman on this thing.  Whose input was that?  Was it Jonathan or was it Chris, was it David, or was it yourself that wanted to see more of the detective come out?

Christian Bale: No, it wasn’t me.  I’m not sure out of them. They have a way of working together Jonah and Chris and David.  You’ll sometimes get one of them kind of begins it and the other one then comes in and then it switches up.  You know that happened with “Batman Begins” in “The Prestige” in there and so that’s a question for them.

We’ve talked to the other cast members who have all uniformly said how Heath came in and helped raise their performance as well because of how free he was with the character.  Can you talk about working with him and sort of how that informed your own performance?

Christian Bale: Yeah, I think that the tone for the performances had already been set.  Chris picked a really wonderful cast and each and every person was up in the game.  Heath clearly had created a character which I was absolutely happy to stand back and witness and see what this guy’s going to completely steal the show, you know?  And in a fantastic way.  In a deserved fashion, you know?  The Joker is a hypnotic character.  I mean one thing that we’d always wanted to make sure is that in all the other portrayals of Batman that I’d seen, he’d always been less interesting than the villains and I think we’ve found the true interest and I find Batman to be absolutely fascinating, but, clearly, the first movie was all about Batman and how he came to be that.  Well now we see him, he’s in a position of power already, well now is the time that we start introducing these other archetypal villains.  And Heath did just a fantastic job.  It was a real pleasure to work with him, to see his immersion in it.  It gave me a lot of amusement because I enjoy watching somebody when they commit themselves so absolutely to a role.  And it’s absolutely right, yeah.  I mean I think he’s just raised the bar in general as Chris has for villains, you know?  He’s created an iconic villain for the ages and I think simultaneously Chris has raised the bar for so-called genre movies, you know?  They don’t have to be limited to being considered good action or good superhero movies.  They can be good movies finish and I think this one stands on it’s own 2 feet against any drama that’s been out there this year.

You do small films.  You do big films and you’ve just signed on to do another huge potential franchise—a rebooting of “The Terminator” franchise.  Were you ever hesitant at all or were you like “all right, cool.  Let’s do another one?” 

Christian Bale: No, absolutely, I was hesitant.  I was working on “Public Enemies” with Michael Mann in Chicago and considering “The Terminator”.  My feeling is that we have an opportunity and a responsibility and there’s no point in making it if you don’t achieve this of reinventing that mythology and there’s a great deal of potential for that and that’s what I’m attempting to do and anything less than that would be us failing.

I wanted to know that you have in this film—in Dark Knight—you have some big action set-pieces and you have some very small moments.  Do you have a favorite whet you looked at the film that you…just a favorite of the film?

Christian Bale: I’d have to watch it a few more times to really understand the favorite.  The ones that immediately come into my mind are actually the interrogation room scene with Heath.  I did enjoy that greatly, largely because that was the first time that we were sitting together in that room by ourselves, just recognizing how we were going to be portraying these characters.  In terms of experience, I did enjoy to no end the standing on the edge of the Sears Tower shot, but I’ve only seen the movie once.  I’ve not seen it in IMAX yet.  I’ve also seen a rough cut.  I saw it a couple of months back just with Chris.  It was not…it didn’t have the final mix or anything to it at that point.  I mean it was a wonderful, beautiful, polished movie that to me, hey you could have just released it as it was, but Chris still considered it a rough cut at that point.  So to truly understand my favorite scenes I’ve got to see it again.

Did you just say that you were on the edge of the Sears Tower yourself?

Christian Bale: Yes.  I was. It’s not really a stunt….it’s more of an experience, you know?  I had a cable.  They weren’t going to let me plummet 110 stories to the bottom.  I could have fallen but I would have just had a nasty bang and surprised some office worker down below and get hauled back up.  But yeah, no all the fight sequences I do myself.  With that I had to turn to my stunt double, Buster, and say, “sorry buddy that one’s mine.  I’ve got to be doing that one”, but I gave him slamming into concrete pillars at 30 mph, falling 5 stories onto a car.  That stuff I said, “that’s yours.  You can take that one.”  But the Sears Tower experience I had to take for myself.

You’re playing a superhero but do you have one in real life?  A hero?

Christian Bale: You know what, I was never much one for heroes growing up; I’ve really got to say.  I was never into comic books.  I mean the first time I had any interest in Batman…I enjoyed very much Adam West’s kind of spoofing of what I think Bob Kane’s original intention was and I think he did a great job with that, but I was never into comic books.  I just happened to come across Frank Miller’s “Batman Year One” and have enjoyed that tone and that was the first time that I felt that I could see that Batman could be played in a real interesting fashion and the concept of graphic novels from that, but I’ve never been somebody really who looks for heroes.

Do you have one in real life?

Christian Bale: In real life?  Well you know what, God bless him, that would be my father.

Are we seeing you at Comic-Con?

Christian Bale: When is that?

July 26^th?   23^rd, 24^th, 25^th.

Christian Bale: I’m not in the country.

All right, good deal.

Christian Bale: You didn’t want to see me there.