Christian Bale Admits His On-Set Rant Went Too Far

Christian Bale has spoken for the first time about his now infamous outburst on the set of Terminator Salvation - and admitted he "went overboard"

In an audio recording leaked online in February, the actor can be heard screaming abuse (including the f-word 39 times) at the movie's director of photography, Shane Hurlbut, for walking into his field of vision during a particularly intense scene.

In the four-minute tirade, Christian shouts: "I'm trying to do a f**king scene here and I'm going, 'Why the f**k is Shane walking in there? What's he doing there?' Do you understand my mind is not in the scene if you're doing that?"

He later promises to "kick his f**king ass" before threatening to quit the film unless the offending DP is fired.

The clip was played around the world and was spawned a thumping dance mix.

Now Christian admits he may have over-reacted somewhat.

“Hey, I did what I did,” he tells Total Film. “I'm not hiding from that. I went overboard.

"I'm not making any excuses. I'm not whining. Hey listen, I did it... it's in public space. Hey, I take the consequences for it.

"It's not in anyone's interest to know that much. I get that they want to hear about it but to me I look at it as old-school movie magic and with magic you do not reveal your secrets."

But he maintains that Hurlbut betrayed his trust by recording his rant.

“But there is an essential trust and it's not a tacit one, it's a verbal one, a spoken one, which is [that] every sound guy says, 'We are not only not recording, we're not even listening,' he says.

"So, well, there goes that. I do stress, though, it's not in any way a trust that's there to cover up bad behaviour.

“It's not about that. It's an essential trust that's needed for creativity."