Christian Bale says people “laughed” at him for his serious approach to Batman

You’re laughing. Christian Bale is trying to do a gritty big screen adaptation of Batman, and you’re laughing. However, Bale is the one who got the last laugh, as he not only enjoyed superhuman success with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, but he also–yes–lived long enough to see himself become the villain in Thor: Love And Thunder.

It’s hard to imagine a time when anyone was skeptical about Nolan’s Batman movies, but in a new interview with The Washington Post Bale says he heard from plenty of naysayers before 2005’s Batman Begins. “I would [tell people] we’re going to sort of do Batman, but take him seriously. I had tons of people laugh at me and just say, ‘well that’s just not going to work at all.’ So, it’s wonderful to be a part of a trilogy that proved those people wrong.”

Those doubting Thomases must never have read a Batman comic, which fall frequently if not exclusively in the “grimdark” category. That said, the live action adaptations of the character usually leaned into the whimsy, be it Adam West’s iconic take or Tim Burton’s madcap vision of Gotham. And of course, previous adaptation before Batman Begins was the universally maligned Batman & Robin, which was its own kind of ridiculous.

Love it or hate it, Nolan’s trilogy was a game changer: “I’m not certain if it kick-started [the MCU] but it certainly helped along the way,” Bale reflects in the Post. Marvel’s films have largely been a lot less “serious” than the Dark Knight series, but it’s probably fair to say that Nolan primed film audiences to take superheroes more seriously. Certainly no one would laugh at the idea now, even if Warner Bros. has struggled with recreate that tone for the DCEU.

By the way, another thing people “keep saying” to Christian Bale is that they’re “surprised” to see him in Thor, but “I’m not surprised in the slightest,” he says. In fact, he’s totally down to do more superhero movies: “[A] good story is a good story. A good film is a good film. And a good director is a good director. And I’m open to any of those ideas.”