Christian Bale says he and Tom Hardy had a very low-key secret code during the filming of The Dark Knight Rises.
The two Hollywood powerhouses famously went head-to-head in the final instalment of The Dark Knight trilogy.
Despite such a convincing performance from both actors, Bale said that the pair found it difficult to communicate on set.
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Watch him talk about it below:
While promoting new flick, The Pale Blue Eye, the British actor revealed that he and his on-screen rival would struggle to hear each other on set because 'there was so much noise'.
"You know, the thing that would happen between me and Tom, who's superb, by the way, what an actor, he's fantastic. We were so far apart, and I couldn't hear what he was saying because there was so much noise and he couldn't hear what I was saying, cause there was so much noise," Bale explained to Heart.
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"And we were like, every time, Chris was going, Chris Nolan, the director, was going 'Guys, you're not answering each other?'
"We can't hear anything."
Despite the glaring on-set issue, Bale and Hardy managed to find a simple but brilliant solution.
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One actor would give a 'discreet' finger gesture to the other to signal that they had finished their line, allowing the scene to play out as normal.
"So Tom and I, I would say my line, and then I would go like [stretches index finger] with my finger and he'd know I'm done, your turn. And then he would do his bit, and then he'd go like that [...] but a bit more, you know, discreet than that.
"Hopefully no one notices it in the feature film, but that was how we communicate." the American Psycho star said.
As far as we're aware, not one eagle-eyed viewer has spotted the finger movement yet, which is a compliment to how seriously the two actors take their work.
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Well it's safe to say that the character of Bruce Wayne is completely different to his new role in The Pale Blue Eye.
The movie follows veteran detective, Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), who investigates a series of grisly murders with the help of a young cadet who will eventually go on to become the world-famous author Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).
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Director Scott Cooper says he's always wanted to display the work of Edgar Allan Poe from his own perspective.
He told Tudum: "Because my father taught English and there was lots of literature strewn about our house, Poe came into my world at a young age, and I was just fascinated with his works.
"And my father, after I directed Crazy Heart, he said, ‘There’s a novel that you should read; it’s The Pale Blue Eye and it has Edgar Allan Poe as a character at the centre of an investigation’."
The all-star cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Harry Lawtey, Toby Jones, and Robert Duvall.
The Pale Blue Eye will hit Netflix on January 6, 2023.
Topics: Tom Hardy, Celebrity, Film and TV