AVC: Do you have difficulty finding roles that meet your requirements? Films that you think will be adventures, but that also turn out to have been worth making?
CB: I certainly have, yeah. You go back and look, and you see a trail of disasters in my wake.
AVC: What do you consider a disaster?
CB: I always leave that for other people to decide, because some of the things I consider to be disasters are some people's favorite movies. And that's what I like so much, is that you never know. Something intrigues somebody and means nothing to somebody else. I don't like filmmakers to tell people how they should react to their movies. I absolutely have favorites, and I have others that I'm mortified by, but I keep that to myself. I think I've managed to find some very interesting things that I've been very satisfied with recently. I don't know if that's gonna keep going.
AVC: What have you been happiest with in terms of seeing the film afterward, in terms of getting that "This is what I thought it could be" feeling?
CB: I think that I've had an unusually fortunate—for myself, other people may disagree—run recently. I would say that from The Machinist on, I've been pretty happy with the way that most of the movies have turned out. And that's unusual. I don't believe it's because I'm lowering my standards. I think they really have turned out to be a nice surprise for me every time. It's always sort of gravy for me more than anything if the movie turns out well, but everything: Machinist, Batman Begins, New World, Harsh Times, Rescue Dawn, Prestige, now 3:10 To Yuma—they're all radically different movies, certainly not appealing to everybody. And probably you wouldn't get one other person who liked all of them, except for me. But I do. I do like them when I see them.
AVC: You've said Batman Begins let you plan your career for the first time.
CB: Yeah, to a degree. I'm not at the point yet where I'm truly able to do that. I was suddenly able to get financing for movies that I had been trying to get made for some time. They suddenly came together much easier after Batman Begins. So the plan is actually working. It meant I was able to be cast in movies that I think otherwise I would never have been cast in. Planning a career, I always find that such a tricky thing, because I don't have much of a plan, really. People always say, "What do you want to do next, what kind of movie do you want to do next?" And I say, "I wanna do whatever script that is the best one that comes my way." I certainly would never say, "Oh, I'm gonna do a Western next," and sit around waitin' for a Western to come along when there's some other genre's brilliant script sitting right there. No. And I don't have any desire to plan it that much. What has been quite nice is that for the first time ever, I sometimes have known what I was going to be doing next whilst I was working on something. I knew that I was going to be doing another movie, and when. Which had never happened to me before. It was always that I finished one movie and then had no idea what I was doing. I think there's a limited amount of planning you can do, at least in the position I'm in. Maybe more successful actors can plan more than I'm able to.
AVC: You don't consider yourself a successful actor?
CB: I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, yes, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level. And then you go and have to deal with the financial level. In terms of financiers, in their eyes, no, I ain't the first on the list. That's how I mean "successful," in that respect. There are many actors who can probably absolutely plan their careers and really, really have the pick of the bunch.
AVC: You've taken some roles that have been controversial. American Psycho and Velvet Goldmine were both described as potentially career-killing films, though for different reasons.
CB: Really? On Velvet Goldmine? I never knew that. [Laughs.] I never got that sense.
AVC: Have you ever taken a part that you thought would be risky to your career, that could make you less "successful," or bankable?
CB: Nothing that I personally felt that way about. Though certainly, American Psycho, yes, I had a lot of people saying to me that it was a big risk. I never considered it to be, but I found it very funny that other people did. In a way, I had a kind of self-destructive bent, where I almost wanted to see if they were right. Like, "Really? This can actually have such an effect that I'll never work again? Well, I want to do that and see if that happens, you know?" But I've not been aware of that on any movie other than American Psycho.
AVC: You never went to an acting school, but some of your biographies talk about all the places you were accepted to, and your regrets about not having a formal acting education—
CB: No, no, no. I never applied to any acting schools. I don't know if that's just bad reporting, or—sometimes I just make stuff up.
AVC: But you have said in some interviews that you've regretted not getting a formal education in your craft?
CB: Not anymore.
AVC: Could you have learned anything from school that you haven't learned from the job?
CB: Probably not. But I wasn't sure about that at the time. You know, there was a partial feeling of just wanting to have the experience that people of my age were having, who were going to college. Sure, I was working, and I was loving it. And I was getting to travel and stuff. But you know, I was paying bills, and I was having responsibilities that they didn't have yet. A certain amount of it was just wanting to shirk those. In terms of actually studying and stuff—I guess it's right for a lot of people, but I don't feel like you need to, for acting. I think there's a few very simple, easy rules for film acting—very simple directions, like getting off camera, eye-lines, sightlines—you can learn it in a day. And other than that, I've never quite seen the need for it. I recognize that's me personally. Some very great actors do like to train. But I'm just not interested in doing that to myself.
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