The director, who uses the single name 'McG', told The Telegraph that it was his demand for perfection that triggered Bale’s expletive-laden rant at a crew member. “I’m to blame for the whole thing,” he said. “First and foremost it’s my job to create a safe environment on the set at all times so that actors can explore any given emotion and always believe in the sanctity of the film… In February, after the filming of the £100million Terminator Salvation, the audio of the actor became an overnight viral sensation. McG described the audio as “wildly offensive” but defended the actor - most famous for his performance of Batman in box office hit ‘The Dark Night’ – saying that the rant was “taken out of context”. He admitted swearing at the actor numerous times and deliberately trying to aggravate Bale so that he would come across on camera as “fired-up”. The film, the fourth of the Terminator movies, is set in dark, post-Apocalyptic 2018, 14 years after the nuclear attack that ended the previous Terminator trilogy. “In a great many ways this is a war movie so I’m on the set getting in Christian’s face saying, 'You’d better get your ----ing s--- together and you’d better fire up and make me believe your life is in danger, now get off your ----ing ass Christian and go and show me something.’ "Now that’s going to get him fired up in the spirit of creating a real life and death performance and that’s never meant to get outside that arena." McG said that in reality Bale is a caring family man. “The truth is simply Christian’s a good guy. Don’t accuse him of being a bad guy because he’s not. He loves his family, he has no entourage, he’s an actor’s actor and he operates from a place of passion. He’ll be the first to admit, 'Wow, I flew off the handle,’ but he was very much involved in what I was driving him to. McG is not the only crew member to have defended Bale over the tirade. Assistant director Bruce Franklin told US entertainment channel E! News that the rant was the result of Bale being distracted during an emotional scene. He said: "If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove – it was the most emotional scene in the movie – and for him to get stopped in the middle of it... He is very intensely involved in his character. "He doesn't walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed."
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