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It's almost like you want to go get a drink with them, get to know them a little bit, he says. Bale's informal acting education began when he was a child. The youngest of four in a family that moved constantly, he says he was acting somewhat in my own life in terms of adapting to the different kids in schools I had to go to all the time.

After some TV work, at age 12 he landed his first film role, and it was a doozy: the lead in Steven Spielberg's epic Empire of the Sun. After seeing Christian in 'Empire of the Sun,' I went, God, I hope they don't just shove him into films. Maybe he'll step back a bit and learn the working that an actor does, recalls Peter Fonda, Bale's co-star in 3:10 to Yuma.

Despite a steady stream of roles, Bale did step back, considering again and again if he really wanted acting as a career. Once he'd decided, somewhere around age 21, Bale devised his own acting-class curriculum -- with real roles in real films -- that culminated with 2004's The Machinist. Before that, I would say that was kind of the equivalent of me doing my drama-school training, my film-school training, he says.

I experimented with things, just wanting to see if it would work. Many times it didn't. The Christian Bale Film School included his breakthrough role in American Psycho, a bloody drama that he considers a black comedy.

( I have a twisted sense of humor, he says.) His portrayal of an uptight psychiatrist in the dysfunctional-family tale Laurel Canyon and a futuristic fighter in the sci-fi thriller Equilibrium also came during this time. Bale draws on his own creativity and life experiences, too, in becoming a character.

But he says the ideal actor would have no life whatsoever. There would be an absolute void, so they could truly just study somebody without putting any of their own interpretations onto it, he says, adding that it's obviously impossible. One gets the feeling Bale would do it if he could.

He's got a fire, and he understands acting at its core, says 3:10 to Yuma director James Mangold. Part of Christian's power I think is the economy with which he delivers his choices and that he doesn't work too hard, and he has the confidence in his own physicality and just the kind of lightning streaming out of his eyes. Sometimes, he has to do no more than just that.

Bale can next be seen in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, playing one of the many Bob Dylans the film presents, and in Christopher Nolan's anticipated sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight. When he's not working, he spends time with his wife and young daughter or exercising his most important acting muscle: imagination. I've always been too much of somebody who can sit there kind of thinking, daydreaming and doing stuff, he says, which I think has always been helpful for acting.

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