There is no rest for a wicked - good role player . After making the awards - season rounds forthe Oscar - nominatedThe Big Short , Christian Bale pass to screen this week inKnight of Cups , a lyrical looking at life in the Hollywood degenerate lane , courtesy of the populace ’s most problematical , existential director , Terrence Malick .

Bale plays Rick , a screenwriter who spends as much clip stroll the Santa Monica Pier and muse on life as he does pen the next majuscule blockbuster . Women – including Cate Blanchett , Natalie Portman , and Freida Pinto – come in into and go out of his life . His brother / doppelganger Wes Bentley shows up to holler in his face . Los Angeles provides the backdrop , a foggy dreamscape of restaurants , pot shops , and studio backlots . Bale ’s face does most of the talk .

as luck would have it , the actor habituate existent words when dropped into conversation . We asked Bale what it ’s like to harness a subject that hits closely to home , why he late quit a job over exercising weight - gain headache , and his real impression on Girl Scout Cookies ( which he chowed down onduring the Academy Awards ) .

christian bale in broad green pictures

Knight of Cups | Broad Green Pictures

You just attended the Academy Awards forThe Big Short.Was your Oscar night anything likeKnight of Cups?

Yes , in reality . It would ’ve been great to film there . Would ’ve been everlasting . Very surreal , out - of - soundbox experience .   Kind of beauty and ugliness all justly next to each other .

How is it both?

How can it not be ? It ’s nonstop surreal . When it break being that then you ’ve lose something .

You ate Thin Mints at the Oscars. That felt surreal.

One .

Sorry – Thin Mint, singular. Was it delicious?

No .

You don’t like Girl Scout Cookies? Oh, come on.

Do you ?

Too much, probably.

When you ’ve got the munchies you ’ll eat anything .

Knight of Cupsis a sprawling spirit journey through show business. Was there a moment in the movie drawn from your own Hollywood experience?

I do n’t really care to ever think of it that way with gags and stuff and nonsense , but there ’s law of similarity in form of the love / hate of LA . I do love it now but I recognize there ’s an dreadful fortune I hate about it . When I first came out [ here ] , I did n’t wish it . I first came out here to make when I was 17 and brought some of my family with me . I was n’t getting any work in England so I would follow out here , but as soon as I was done working , I would lead back to England where I just feel more comfortable – a city like London being so different from Los Angeles . That , to me , was a proper metropolis , and this was not .

Then , gradually , spending more and more time … unlike Rick , I ’ve really get fastening . I ’ve got deep root . My children were bear here and my married woman is from here and everything and all that , but gradually learning to see , there ’s actually so much that ’s fantastic about this city as well .

How did you learn to love it?

The architecture . There ’s wretched people , there ’s beautiful multitude . But in the same agency that Rick is seem and sweetheart is kind of a terrible distraction and it ’s a howling guide . He ’s just trying to image out which is which .

Knight of Cupsplays fast and loose with scene-setting and plot, unlike most of your movies. Were you working off a traditional script?

Not a whole hand . Not any script . I just mystify a character description . [ Malick ] told me to readThe Moviegoer[by Walker Percy ] and that was it . Other actors would get page , which had , sometimes it sounded like riddles on it . Other times it was a mo more practical , and that was it . Now whether Terry actually possess something , I ca n’t answer you . I do n’t know because he certainly did n’t show me if he did . I suspect it was mostly just in his head .

That’s a lot to give up.

When you ’ve got a schematic playscript , no matter how much you try on not to recognize it , you know that there ’s a goal at the end of each scene , correct ? You know that you ’re trying to reach a certain bit so that it makes sense for the next to make sentience . Whereas when you ’re doing a pic like you are with Terry , there is no finish in each scene , it ’s " see what happens " and then he ’s going to put all the pieces together far more like a piece of music than the conventional motion picture .

So , no , very dissimilar . Just character descriptions devote . We readThe Moviegoerand the kind of journeying that that fictitious character ’s on . Other than that , the whole point was never to get stick to in a rut . The hour that [ Malick ] saw that even one line was kind of being echo in a room that it looked like the thespian had sort of peg it and palpate well-chosen with themselves that they were doing a good Book of Job , then that was the dying of it for him and he would say , " Move on , " or just do n’t say anything , be all silent . That can be fine as well , he would be delighted with it .

Did the experience remind you of working as a kid? You were 13 years old when you worked with Steven Spielberg onEmpire of the Sun. Maybe you relied more on a director back then.

No . I think that child do have a very by nature gifted ability for playing and then it all gets marked up when they set about to kind of think about , " Oh , you did a good problem , you did a big Book of Job . " That ’s when it becomes bad , when you jump to pass judgment yourself .

Did that happen to you?

Oh , I ’ve been through every flaming one and I ’ve had hundreds of multiplication when I ’ve say , " That ’s it , I ’m done . I ’m never go to do this again . I ’m going to find something else . gormandize it . "

What movie made you feel that way?

It ’s always like that . It ’s always a roller coaster of love / detest because you feel about it . It ’s not just a regular job , it ’s a passion and it should be , so therefore , sometimes you ’re really gloomy as hell about it and you make a crap film or somebody promises you something and then they do n’t come through with it at all , or you make a moving picture that has bits that are good but other bits that are dumb . Then occasionally , " Whoa , Holy Grail ! " and you actually get a picture that you ’re really proud of . That occur quite rarely , but you ’re always in hunt of that . It ’s like an addiction .

Malickis a big fan ofZoolander.

Yeah , he always say that , but I reckon that ’s the same way that whenever anyone require me , they say , " What ’s your favorite pic ? " I say , Beverly Hills Ninja .

Wait, so you do or don’t loveBeverly Hills Ninja?

I really loveBeverly Hills Ninja . I see it two nights in a row and I shout with laughter at exactly the same moments each time . It ’s an easy resolution that gets you out of take to go into much more big rationality about why you love something else that people would expect . That ’s not say that Terry does n’t , he does loveZoolanderand I will ask him if he ’s gon na go seeZoolander 2 . Is it out yet ?

It came out earlier this month.

Well , then I ’ll expect him if he has seenZoolander 2 .

" I really loveBeverly Hills Ninja . I watched it two nights in a quarrel and I cried with laugh at exactly the same moments each time . "

In a way,Knight of Cupsis Malick’sZoolander. There’s modeling, there’s celebrity cameos, there’s facial expression… did you two ever talk about it?

Did I do Blue Steel ? ?

There’s a little Blue Steel in there.

Blue Steel ! No , we never discuss that , so I love that ’s what you think of it . I have to tell him that .

Have him call me with the answer.

He wo n’t .

Malick made another movie around the same time asKnight of Cups. He filmed Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara at a concert. Youappearto be in that movie, but it’s not totally clear.

Back in 2011 we went to Austin together and we kind of did a circumstances of walking wing at a euphony festival . On stage as well – just improvised a lot . Had a marvelous Clarence Shepard Day Jr. with unlike bands and musicians . I only did three day . Anyone who puzzle need with a film with Terry , they ’re lying if they say that they know what the film ’s going to be like . So I could either cease up being thin completely or I could be the lead , I ’ve get under one’s skin no idea .

Speaking of future movies and Thin Mints, you were going to make an Enzo Ferrari biopic withHeatdirector Michael Mann, then dropped out because you couldn’t gain the weight to play him. What’s the story there?

No , it was once I gained the weight . Look , I wish Enzo had been a bit of a penny-pinching fellow , but he was n’t . I take up because it ’s a wondrous script . I ’m very salutary friend with Michael , we ’ve done a flock of research , we traveled to Italy together . I love the piece . [ But ] I have had a series of accidents , and I ’m now 42 . My torso was just scream out to me pronounce , " You are going to rue this , something ’s going awry . " I got some crimson - flag warning , which were substantial enough that I actually started bear attention , because unremarkably I just ignore that . This is one of the few occasions I had to say , " You know what ? This is n’t going to work and this could be disastrous , " so I had to just call it . I repent it immensely because it was a very , very limited man .

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Matt Patches is Thrillist ’s Entertainment editor . He previously wrote for Grantland , Esquire.com , Vulture , The Hollywood Reporter , andThe Guardian . His favorite picture show of all clock time isGroundhog Day . Find him on Twitter:@misterpatches .

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thin mints, Oscars 2016, Christian Bale

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Christian Bale

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Beverly Hills Ninja | Broad Green Pictures