20 Things You Didn't Know About The Prestige

3. Christian Bale Didn't Learn A Single Magic Trick During The Shoot

The Prestige poster Hugh Jackman Scarlett Johansson Christian Bale
Warner Bros.

One of the actors who the aforementioned Ricky Jay worked with was Christian Bale, with Jay helping him with certain parts of the tricks he needed to perform on camera.

It must have been awesome to have a skilled magician like that in his corner, right? Well, not really. According to Bale, he didn't learn a whole lot of magic at all.

Reflecting on his time spent shooting The Prestige, Bale went into detail about the relationship he had with Jay, stating that the magician was such an ardent professional that he didn't want to give away any major tricks of the trade:

"They would show me the beginning [of a trick], they would show me the end, or they would show me the middle, but they would never show me all three. [laughs] I came out of the whole thing having no clue how to perform any magic trick at all."

Conversely, Bale also stated that Hugh Jackman worked with some magicians who were much more liberal with the information they dished out. Lucky sod.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine 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 for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.