Article: Christian Bale: Dark Knight laid bare ; The latest Batman is tough and brooding - just like the actor behind the mask. Gill Pringle meets Christian Bale

This is the invisible armour he wears to protect himself from the real world; a place where the villains are those who seek to unveil his true identity.

"An actor should never be larger than the film he's in," he states. True to his word, Bale continues to slip under the radar despite a career that began, aged 13, when he was cast in the lead role of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. In 2005's The Machinist, he lost more than four stone to play a troubled insomniac, but refused to discuss his weight-loss process for fear of trivialising the film's dark subject matter.

"Look," exclaims the 34-year-old Welsh-born actor, "I'm an actor, not a baby-kissing politician. I kick myself whenever I ...

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