Christian Bale Disappears Into Character in Amsterdam, Impressing Co-Stars and Director

Christian Bale stars as Burt Berendsen in David O. Russell’s new film, Amsterdam, which is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

The role is complex, with Berendsen in a dysfunctional relationship with his wife Beatrice Vandenheuvel (played by Andrea Riseborough) while dealing with the injuries and trauma of war.

Bale’s co-stars and director David O. Russell have noted that Bale was able to fully disappear into his character, Burt Berendsen, during filming for Amsterdam.

Co-star Zoe Saldaña said, “You never really meet Christian. You meet the characters that he brings to life, which is just so inspiring and exciting, but you have to hold your own because you find yourself looking up to him so much because he surrenders blindly to the craft of the story for the sake of his character.”

Russell praised Christian Bale’s ability to create characters that are very specific, saying that this leads to the “magic of seeing a role that we’ve never seen him play before.”

Bale himself attributes his successful transformation to the amount of time he had to prepare for the role. “I had more time to prep him and get him ready and get used to his mannerisms, so much so that I wasn’t even aware I was doing it any more,” said Bale. “And when filming wrapped, and I realized that it might be the last time I did Burt’s voice, I realized I was going to miss him. He felt like a really good friend of mine because we’d been putting this together for such a long time.”

In addition to Bale and Saldana, Amsterdam features an all-star cast including Margot Robbie and John David Washington. The film is a comedic thriller that follows three close friends and everyone they encounter on their adventure. The film is produced by two-time Oscar nominee Arnon Milchan and directed by five-time Oscar nominee David O. Russell.

IGN gave the film a score of 6 out of 10 in its review, writing, “Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington have fantastic chemistry but they get buried under the weight of a script that suffocates the humanity of their story and veers off into a ridiculously complicated plot that feels like it goes on forever and never regains its heart.”