Christian Bale turned down Terminator Salvation three times before accepting out of spite

'It's a thorn in my side'

Christian Bale has revealed the extent to which he tried not starring in one of his films.

The actor - who stars in new film Hostiles - played John Connor in 2009 film Terminator Salvation - and has now elaborated on his previously expressed regrets by claiming he appeared in the McG-directed sequel out of spite.

In fact, Bale claims he turned down the role three times before accepting in a bid to prove to others it was a bad decision.

“I said no three times,“ he told MTV in a recent interview. ”I thought that the franchise…I went ‘Nah, there’s no story there.'

“There’s a perverse side to me, where people were telling me that, there’s no way on God’s Earth that I should take that role, and I was thinking the same thing. But when people started verbalizing that to me, I started to go, ‘Oh really? All right, well watch this then.’ So there was a little bit of that involved in the choice.”

Bale levelled that the film was hurt by “an unfortunate series of events," (the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike and departure of Westworld co-showrunner Jonathan Nolan who, Bale says, left the project after turning in a “wonderful” script).

“It’s a great thorn in my side, because I wish we could have reinvigorated [the franchise. And unfortunately, during production, you could tell that wasn’t happening. It’s a great shame.”

Terminator Salvation was the film during the production of which Bale's on-set tirade against cinematographer Shane Hurlbut leaked to the world, something the actor described as a “great learning lesson.”

He said: “That was a very unusual occasion. Great learning lesson for me. No matter how much you lose yourself in a scene, you do not allow yourself to behave that way. And yeah, of course, I’ve got enormous regrets about it.”

Bale previously revealed that he wasn't happy with his performance as Batman in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.

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