With his recent credits including "The Machinist," "Batman Begins," "The Prestige" and "Rescue Dawn," Christian Bale is on what can only be called a hot streak. But about five years ago, pre-"Machinist" and post-"American Psycho," nobody wanted to cast him in anything.

"Well, a couple of people did, but it was for very bad things," the versatile, Welsh-born actor remembers. "And so [I] was kind of realizing, 'OK, I have to reevaluate, reinvent at this point.'"

Whatever he did, it worked. He's in the midst of filming his second Batman movie, "The Dark Knight," and starring with Russell Crowe in the remake of the 1957 Western, "3:10 to Yuma."

In the film, Bale plays Dan, a husband and father of two struggling to support his family as railroad construction imposes on this small-town rancher's land. So to drum up some extra cash, Dan agrees to help escort known killer Ben (Crowe) across the desert to make the 3:10 train to Yuma prison.

In person, Bale is soft-spoken but not without a sense of humor. And while at times he seems nearly as cold as his "American Psycho" character, Bale admits even huge, critically beloved actors need encouragement too.

"I'd love to say I was completely impervious to anybody's opinion, but that just ain't the truth," he admits. "Of course it matters. After all, what am I paid to do? I'm paid to essentially make an ass out of myself if needed. And occasionally in doing that you're going to fall flat on your face."

Here's what else he told Metromix about his extreme preparation for roles, his lack of formal training and why superheroes shouldn't wear capes.

Did playing a fake cowboy in 1992's [Disney musical] "Newsies" prepare you for "3:10 to Yuma"?
[Laughs] I drew nothing from it except for the quite annoying fact that when I first arrived in "Santa Fe" I could not get the song from "Newsies" ["Santa Fe"] out of my head. Every time somebody said "Santa Fe," it would just go off in my head, and it hadn't gone off in my head for whatever it is, 16 years or something. Damn it if every time I saw a road sign or somebody mentioned it…and it took a good month or so for that to quit.

And you just had to belt it out?
Oh, no, I definitely kept that inside. I wasn't letting anybody know about it.

What do you like about characters forced to go to extremes?
The possibilities of who you could be given different circumstances. I think everybody has a question throughout their lives of if they were really put to the test, could they stand up and be the person that they would hope that they wanted to be? You know, I'm a father now. I see in myself that principles and ethics that applied when I was not a father change radically when I became a father. And I kinda have two different sets of principles about who I am. Of the things that I will do for my daughter, which are pretty much limitless, versus what I will do for myself. And I could see that in Dan. At what point are his own beliefs actually destroying his family?

When preparing for "The Machinist" you lost more than 60 lbs. Did a voice in the back of your mind scream, "I want a cheeseburger!"
All the time, man. Yeah, of course! Are you crazy? Yeah. I chose not to go eat with anybody because the second I saw or smelt that food I was like a wolf. And I had a couple of times when I did do that. And I ate five meals in one go. And obviously my stomach wasn't prepared for that. And I felt terrible afterwards. So I just said, "I can't do that." Because you do; you want a cheeseburger every day.

You don't have any formal training as an actor since you started so young. Do you feel like you have to try harder or that you have something to prove?
Not anymore. I used to feel that way: "Hey, there's a lot of people, they go and study for years to do this, and they have techniques that they use." And I thought, "Oh, maybe I should do that." But I don't feel that anymore.

I spoke with a few people who did study with some pretty good actors, even a couple heads of drama schools and things, and actually after having the conversations with them kind of felt like, "Oh, well, don't really need to do that. I can quit with this guilt thing."

For me I think that there's too much talking about how people act and how to get there and all that as if it's some—and I know a lot of other actors who disagree with me on this—as if it's some sort of mechanical skill that you have to acquire, and if you don't have this certain knowledge, well, there's no way that you could ever do it. I just don't believe that at all. I don't think you have to have taken a single lesson in your life. All you gotta do is watch people. That's it.

OK. So, Batman, what are some situations in which you would or wouldn't be willing to wear a cape?
I mean, first of all, let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he wasn't really onto anything good. The number of times I'm treading on that damn thing…or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It's really not practical [for a superhero]. I wouldn't do it myself. I'm wearing a cape every damn day, so I can come up with many more than three situations where I'm wearing a cape. Practically, actually, a situation where I wouldn't would be [is] crime fighting. I personally wouldn't choose to don that.