In "Out of the Furnace," Bale plays a man who takes the law into his own hands to find his younger brother, who has suddenly disappeared after becoming involved with the wrong people.
Bale says he's had times where he just needed any acting job to pay the bills. So these days, he feels very fortunate he's been able to pick and choose.
"Do I believe that's going to last forever? Absolutely not. I'm much more of a realist than that, you know. I'll be back to desperately needing to do something. But right now? Absolutely. I'm going to take advantage of that, and this was just a superb piece that I wanted to make," Bale said.
The same can be said for his work as a con-artist in "American Hustle."
To play this role, the handsome actor shaved parts of his head to get that perfect comb-over look. But something else was even more noticeable - Bale gained 40 pounds to take on his weighty role.
"It's easy to start with. You're just sitting on your butt and you're eating lots of donuts and eating bread and everything like that. But you do it for two months, and your body starts to rebel against you," Bale explained. "It's saying, 'No, please!' and your back is aching, and there's also some problems with that, and then you've got to lose the weight at the end of it, you know? I wish it was simple."
When it comes to the roles he takes on, Bale says he's really not afraid of anything.
"Absolutely not. Why would I be, because it's not me. You know what I mean? It's not me doing it, you know? I don't have any reason to be embarrassed about any of it because it's the character. The character's doing that - not me," Bale said.
"American Hustle" hits theaters Friday.
