I was about to call this a bold faced lie, but then I remembered Downey's performance in Chaplin so hmm.
you might be on to something
I think people get thrown off by Bale's ability to lose unhealthy amounts of weight for roles. While that's impressive, no doubt, plenty of actors have done the same thing from Steve Zahn and Emile Hirsch to goddamn 50 Cent. I think Bale has been in some very good movies, but the only times he's really hit a homerun with his performances were American Psycho, The Machinist and The Fighter. People bring up the Prestige but that movie wasn't great because of his performance. You feel what I'm sayin? shyt was just a genius movie all around. The acting was fine, don't get me wrong...I ain't saying otherwise, but none of the performance were anything to
over. it was just a good ass movie.
Great movie ≠ Great performance, just like a bad move ≠ bad performance. Case in point, Daniel Day fukkin Lewis in Gangs of New York...not exactly an excellent movie or anything, but he absolutely killed that shyt with one of the greatest performances ever on screen. Meryl Streep in Iron Lady. Again, movie wasn't that great (shyt sucked in my honest opinion) but her performance was excellent. Got her an oscar..
Nobody is touching Daniel Day Lewis as far as method acting. That nikka probably somewhere in London really believing in his heart that he's Abraham Lincoln.