Method acting must be great - it provides a surefire way of behaving like something of an idiot in polite society.

That is, unless you decide to go home and assault your mum and sister, as it was alleged Christian Bale had gone and done yesterday. That takes things a bit far, away from the Pacino not talking to people unless they address his character ’slight mentalness’ and well into the zone of ‘whoops he may well just be a bit odd in the head’.

But rejoice! For the Baler has bailed out of the cop shop pending further questioning!

Though that does mean he may go and strike again, if he did do anything in the first place. God knows the tabloids warn us of these repeat offenders in Gordon Brown’s Britain.

It must have been difficult for the police questioning Bale, what with his penchant for not revealing any personal information in interviews, ever. The fact that he makes a habit of staying in character - accents and all - beyond filming and throughout promotional tours may well have pushed the whole police grilling into the realms of farcical. You could say it was something of a Dark Knight for all involved.

Amid rampant speculation about how or why Bale may have attacked his family comes very little in the way of actual, concrete information. There has been speculation that he simply shouted at his mum after she said something about his wife. But Christian’s close relatives are keeping just as schtum as the Batman himself, so we are still in the dark.
This, of course, irritates us in the world of highbrow journalism at hecklerspray, as it means we don’t get to employ our nifty quote function. There is this though, a statement released by Bale’s lawyer Simon Smith - it works as an excuse to bring up those large quotation marks:

“Christian Bale attended a London police station today on a voluntary basis. Bale, who denies the allegation, co-operated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question, and has left the station without any charge being made against him by the police.”

No charges have been made as of yet, and Bale has been ordered to return for further questioning in September. That gives him nearly two months to roam the streets. Maybe all that time spent working with Russell Crowe on 3:10 To Yuma wasn’t a complete waste after all, and Christian took away some fine life lessons on things like phone hurling and general fighting round the world.

We can only hope that the release of Terminator Salvation, which stars Bale, isn’t hampered by a similar incident of alleged assault. Who knows? We can say one thing for certain about the Baler - he really is unpredictable.