Guys, Batman is pretty close to being South African. I can die happy now.

In an interview about his Oscar nomination for Vice, Christian Bale revealed his close ties to South Africa.

The interview was conducted by Herman Eloff for Channel24 and focuses on the Bale family history.

Bale’s father, David Bale, was a South African-born entrepreneur and an environmentalist, who in his later years married social-political activist Gloria Steinem (the two of them below).

Bale expands on this in the interview.

“Yeah, I know Cape Town well. My dad was born in Cape Town…and my grandfather was also down there, I only met him briefly towards the end of his life. I actually came down to Cape Town for that purpose of meeting him.”

He shares more without being prompted: “Then both him and I ended up in hospital together. I ended up having to get quite serious surgery whilst I was down there, but you know you’ve got the best surgeons in the world. So, I was down there for a few months in hospital, first in Durban and then down in Cape Town as well.”

Bale spent a fair amount of time in SA while he was recovering.

“I had to do a lot of rehab afterwards and couldn’t fly so, yeah I spent quite a bit of time down there…going to Stellenbosch and driving all over the Garden Route and to Joburg.

My half-sister was also born and grew up in South Africa. My dad has unfortunately passed but I’ve always wanted to go back and visit his old haunts…It’s beautiful there.”

Bale has been nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Dick Cheney in Vice. The role required him to undergo an extreme physical transformation that rendered him almost unrecognisable.

“I was like: ‘You want me to play Cheney? That’s nuts!’ Then I said to him he had to give me a couple of months. Not only to do the research but also, we have to start doing the prosthetics and make-up and I’ve got to start gaining the weight. And I’m fine if after all of that it’s a ‘no’. Then…hey…we did all the work…but if it doesn’t work then we walk away. And we agreed to that.”

You can catch the Oscars on Monday, February 25 our time.

It’s nice to have another ‘local’ to cheer for.

[source:channel24]