10 Actors Who Hate Their Own Movie Performances

5. Christian Bale - The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Dark Knight Christian Bale
Warner Bros. Pictures

Batman is an angry and troubled guy, so it's actually quite fitting that the actors who've played him tend to feel similarly troubled about their own performances.

George Clooney aside, Christian Bale is another former Caped Crusader who feels like his performance as the iconic vigilante wasn't as good as it could've been.

The actor played the role in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy from 2005 to 2012, and in 2016, he told Yahoo! that he "didn’t quite manage what I hoped I would" with his performances across the three films, stating that he "didn't quite nail it."

Bale believes that part of the problem with his Bat-acting was that, in The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger's Joker completely stole the spotlight, which lessened Batman's impact on the film. "Heath turned up, and just kind of completely ruined all my plans,” Bale said. "He’s so much more interesting than me and what I’m doing."

While there can be little doubt that Ledger's Joker was the MVP of The Dark Knight, it's important to not lose sight of the film's other great performances, like Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, and yes, Christian Bale's Batman/Bruce Wayne. Bale might not agree with us, but he didn't put a single foot wrong for three films straight.

Unlike, say, a certain Clooney, in a certain 1997 trainwreck.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!