The Stars on Batman Begins

Sir Michael Caine and Christian Bale talk about making the game.

Batman Begins is set to hit theaters on June 15. And publisher Electronic Arts will release videogame versions of the title on the same day. The film's all-star cast recently stat down for a roundtable Q&A session about lending their voices and likenesses to the upcoming GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox games.

IGN would like to note that we didn't ask all of the questions, as some of them are clearly retarded.

Following, that interview:

Sir Michael Caine: Yeah, I've never done a game. [to Christian] You ever done a game?

Christian Bale: I've never done one.

Sir Michael Caine: I've never done a game. I've never seen a game. I didn't know what it was. So it was quite weird for me. I went in and they said, "You're doing the game." And I said, "Where's the screen?" "There is no screen." It was like doing ADR [which is when actor rerecords the dialog of a movie because the original audio isn't usable], only it was lines I hadn't said before. And what they do is fit the character to what you say, so you don't have to match it to what you said before. Which was great, I was in and out of there in no time.

Christian Bale: Yeah, it was much simpler. It is whole lot easier.

Q: At what point did they ask you to be in the game? Was it when you were talking about being in the movie or after you'd signed on to the movie?

Sir Michael Caine: No, I think it was all done before, in the contract.

Christian Bale: Yeah, they knew beforehand that they were going to do a game. They were working on it I think before we began principal photography. They had conversations with Wally Pfister ( cinematographer) and the production designer [Nathan Crowly] and everybody because I think it takes so long as well to make the game that they couldn't wait to see the movie. So there's actually some storyline differences. I was finding that when we were doing the voice-over. [to Michael] Did you find that?

Sir Michael Caine: Yeah, yeah.

Christian Bale: There were moments that I would look at the game's producers and say, "This isn't in the movie. What's up with this?" And they would say, "Yeah, this storyline takes a slightly different direction."

Q: Well, a movie is only two hours long, while a game can be fifteen, twenty hours long.

Sir Michael Caine: Fifteen hours?

Christian Bale: [to Michael Caine] Oh yeah. I've had times where I've been playing Halo and I've stayed up five hours a night, you know. I just choose not to sleep and you just keep going for a week until you finish the whole thing. It's a completely useless addiction and you've got nothing to show for it.

Sir Michael Caine: Should destroy golf, huh? I've seen people [makes a motion like holding a controller] and I don't know what they were doing.

Q: So are you interested to see what it's all about now?

Sir Michael Caine: Well, the first game I'll be interested in is this one. It'll be my introduction. I'll get the machine… I've seen trailers for them on the television. Everything blows up instantly.

Christian Bale: Yes, everything's exploding. I like the old school games as well though. I go down to the arcade and play Galaga or Pac-Man…

Sir Michael Caine: Hey, you know all about it.

Christian Bale: They had one stick and that's it, that's all you'd have.

Sir Michael Caine: The simple days.

Christian Bale: Where as nowadays it's twenty buttons.

Q: What else do you play besides Halo?

Christian Bale: Yeah. But I had to put it all away because otherwise it consumes all my time.

Sir Michael Caine: Is it that addictive?

Christian Bale: Yeah. And they're blinding us as well. After you play them, and then you can't really see properly for a number of hours afterwards. You dream it, you know.

Q: Do you have all the systems?

Christian Bale: I've been very lucky, I've been given these things, you know? And then had a friend at Xbox who sends me these games, you know? However, I've actually restricted myself from playing for some time now because I just, I like to read as well and you find that all of that goes out the window when you start gaming too much.

Q: So as a game fan, did you want to be a voice in Halo or something like that?

Christian Bale: No, I had no desire to do that whatsoever. I think that with this movie, it's appropriate, but I wouldn't want to do it other than that.

Q: Well, there was some talk of you doing the voice of your character in the Reign Of Fire game at one point.

Christian Bale: It was never mentioned to me.

Q: Would you have done that?

Christian Bale: I don't know. It would depend on the game, though with that movie it would've been appropriate as well.

Q: For you, is it sort of the idea that you are an actor and you wouldn't necessarily do a cartoon voice.

Sir Michael Caine: No, absolutely, I just did Howl's Moving Castle, a Japanese Animation movie. I like animation a great deal, I'm just not quite clued into acting in computer games. It doesn't really appeal to me that much right now.

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