Essay --

With reference to one or two stars, discuss the ways in which they embody a star image. Draw on relevant academic reading in order to illustrate your answer and develop your argument. Christian Bale is increasingly becoming the biggest star in Hollywood from his phenomenal take on DC’s caped crusader or by portraying a man that hasn’t slept for a year in Brad Anderson’s The Machinist. However, Bale isn't only getting attention through his portrayal of these iconic characters but he is also being talked about due to his extreme weight loss for The Machinist and his rant on set of Terminator Salvation which he again plays a reboot of an iconic character John Connor. Christian Bale being able to embody a certain character and change physically just to get into a part is what I am going to explore within this essay. Christian Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales on January 30th 1974 and found fame at the age of 13 after getting the part in Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun. Although being born and brought up in the United Kingdom, almost all of Bale’s roles are American Characters. Due to this, within Bale’s films he uses a very realistic American accent to correctly portray his characters and to make the role as realistic as possible. Bale explains that Bruce Wayne/Batman is a very iconic American figure so fans of the franchise may have a hard time understanding why he is speaking with an English accent in interviews; so for Batman interviews he only uses an  American accent. His commitment to his roles causes him to remain in character almost constantly during the filming process and goes as far as using whatever accent he is using for that particular film in his interviews. Doing this causes him to completely embody ... ...ts himself that during the rant he was â€Å"half John Connor† and â€Å"half Christian Bale† showing the extent of how he gets in to characters for his films however, this is a clear example of how is not always a good thing. Bale won his very first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor after playing Dicky Eklund the brother and coach to boxer â€Å"Irish† Mickey Ward in David O. Russell’s The Fighter. The Oscar was received after Bale again dropped an enormous amount of weight to play the role receiving both praise and criticism for his ever changing weight as critics refer to it as his â€Å"trademark weight loss†. However, Bale hit back at critics illustrating that the weight loss is a vital part of the filming process as he is trying to embody the character of a crack cocaine addict saying â€Å"I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a welterweight with any fat on him - or a crack head†.