Somewhere, right at this moment, we can absolutely guarantee that Alec Baldwin is breathing a sigh of relief.

Seriously, Alec should send Christian Bale a cookie basket. Because Christian Bale has made sure that Alec Baldwin’s insane ‘ignorant little pig’ rant at his daughter has been relegated to only second most brilliant recorded tantrum in history.

A recording of Christian Bale screaming at a Terminator Salvation DP has hit the internet and, if you do one thing today, you must hear it. It’s not just Christian Bale’s fury, you see – it’s the fact that he rants in about 13 different accents.

There’s a lot to like about Christian Bale – the fact that he’s not quite as good at acting as he thinks he is, the way he gave his Batman the most bewilderingly incoherent voice in cinema history, his, um, hair – but nothing even comes close to the way that Christian Bale promotes his films. When it comes to that, the man is a stone cold genius.

Upon the release of The Dark Knight, you’ll remember that Christian Bale got arrested on suspicion of assaulting his own clown mother in a hotel room. That’s dedication for you, and it worked – the film went on to become the second-biggest of all time. And it’s clearly a trick that Christian Bale wants to reproduce for his next movie Terminator Salvation.

What makes us so certain? Why, only a recording of Christian Bale going absolutely batshit at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set that’s just hit the internet. There are literally no words to tell you how amazing the tape is. It’s actually brilliant. We’re not overstating it one bit. Listening to Christian Bale going potty-mouthed berserk at a man who probably doesn’t even make a tenth of the money that he does is the best thing we’ve listened to all year.

Listen to Christian Bale’s incredible Terminator rant here

See? How incredible is that? We’ve found it so completely impossible to pick our favourite part of Christian Bale’s meltdown, so here’s a cluster of them for you. Oh, and by the way, you should take it as a given that the way Christian Bale’s voice lurches from LA drawl to gobby cockney to Nu Yawk screech to Welsh to borderline offensive comedy Pakistani during the rant is one of the best things about it. Because it is. Anyway, in no particular order:

“Do I walk fucking walk around the… NO! Do not shut me up, Bruce! Do I walk… No! NO!”

“Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?”

“Do you want me to go and trash your lights? DO YOU WANT ME TO GO AND TRASH ‘EM?”

“You’re a nice guy. YOU’RE A NICE GUY! But that don’t fucking cut it.”

“I don’t need any fucking walking. He needs to stop walking. I AIN’T THE ONE WALKING!“

Genius. There’s, we’ve said. Christian Bale is actually a genius. Obviously he’s a gigantic self-important prick of the absolute worst kind and spending a second in his company must be like spending three eternities getting kicked in the jaw by an angry horse, but Christian Bale is a genius as well.

According to IMDb, Christian Bale’s next movie is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies. Lord alone knows how he’s going to promote that one, but we’d wager that it’ll involve a tank of petrol, a lighter, a box of puppies and some sort of tribal dancing.

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