In February of last year, it was reported that actor Christian Bale was in talks with Marvel Studios for an undisclosed role in the Chris Hemsworth-starring Thor: Love and Thunder. Many had assumed that it was for a villain role, considering the prestige of Bale as an actor and the unlikelihood of him having recurring appearances in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, as many heroes do.
This villain speculation was later proved correct when Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed that Christian Bale would be playing Gorr the God Butcher in the Thor: Ragnarok sequel. As filming progressed, leaked photos showing the construction of sets mirroring the homeworld of Gorr, implying that his backstory from the comics will be explored. However, photos of Bale on set were nonexistent.
When Bale arrived in Sydney, Australia, in October, he had a head full of hair. Now,, new photos show that the actor had shaved it all off sometime after disembarking his flight.
CHRISTIAN BALE GOING BALD FOR THOR
The Daily Mail has captured photos of Christian Bale with his family at Palm Beach, not far from Sydney, Australia. The thing that sticks out about Bale's appearance is that his head has been completely shaved, presumably for his role alongside Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder.
A SHAVED HEAD MEANS MAKE UP
Unless this head-shaving was simply a choice made by Bale completely independent of his role as Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder, this is hard evidence that Bale's character will, in fact, be bald.
Bale's baldness suggests that his role won't be completely motion-capture like Josh Brolin's performance as Thanos has been. It's possible that Bale's character could be a mixture of make-up and motion capture, such as having long prosthetics for Gorr's tendrils, similar to Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian.
However, unlike Ahsoka, Gorr's face is far more alien in nature, hence the use of CGI to hide Bale's nose, altering the position of his eyes, enlarging his mouth with razor-sharp teeth, and so on. Hopefully, this won't diminish Bale's performance in any way, and him being in costume and (mostly) make-up on set with the other actors will help to enhance their performances as well.
Thor: Love and Thunder, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and Tessa Thompson, is currently scheduled to release in theaters on May 6, 2022.
