Christian Bale by Harrison Cheung Page B

seeking a distributor, presumably after making the tours of film market and festivals.
    On paper, this looked like a very prestigious project. Gabriel Axel, an Oscar-winning director, was at the helm, the interpretation of Hamlet was inventive and fresh, and the cast was chock-full of impressive British actors. Christian starred as young Prince Amled. His love interest was a very young Kate Beckinsale ( Underworld ) with whom he’d reunite many years later in Laurel Canyon . His costars included: Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, Gabriel Byrne (his future Little Women costar), Tom Wilkinson, as well as future stars Ewen Bremner ( Trainspotting ) and Andy Serkis ( The Lord of the Rings ).
    Unfortunately, Gabriel Axel was seventy-six at the time and in poor health, so, disappointingly, the final cut of Prince of Jutland seemed unfinished and uninspired. As a result, the film couldn’t find a distributor for a theatrical release in North America. For Christian’s fans though, it’s an important film, as it featured Christian’s first nude scene.
    â€œYes, it’s true,” Christian said. “Set foot on Danish soil and clothes seem to become a burden. Almost everyone in the film had a go at a nude scene.”
    The good-natured production helped Christian relax for his scene where, at night in a barn’s rafters, he crawls nude through the hay, bare bubble butt in full view, to hit a prying Steven Waddington on the head with a stick.
    Christian recalled: “Axel kept yelling to me: ‘No pee-pee! No pee-pee!’ So I kept my chest and stomach down and ended up all scratched up by the coarse hay. I had red marks on my body for weeks.”
    Director Axel also had a laugh at Christian’s gestures in a scene with Brian Cox when Cox presents Christian with a foot-long wooden shaft. While the two talk, Christian absentmindedly begins to stroke the upright shaft until Axel had to yell: “Cut! You look like you are playing with your pee-pee!”
    Prince of Jutland failed to find a distributor and languished for years until Christian’s fans—the mighty Baleheads—campaigned to get Miramax to release it on video, heavily reedited with a new title, Royal Deceit .
    Prince of Jutland was Christian’s first experience with an independent film and all its distribution challenges. And after seeing the uneven work, Christian was happy to add this title to his Omitted From Résumé list.
    What a difference twelve months can make. By 1992, Christian Bale’s career was looking a little shaky. American producers, if they had heard of him at all, only vaguely knew him as the former child star of Spielberg’s biggest bomb, Empire of the Sun . By April, Christian was also known as the teen star of Disney’sbiggest bomb, Newsies . His European indie film, Prince of Jutland , couldn’t find a distributor. In some Hollywood circles, he had earned the nickname “Christian Fail.” Fortunately, Christian thought, he had his next big studio film coming out soon— Swing Kids !
    Shot in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Swing Kids was not released until March 1993. Swing Kids was another pricey big production for Disney under their Hollywood Pictures label. Like Newsies, Swing Kids was also loosely based on a true story. It was about the growing power of the Nazi party and the creation of the Hitler Youth—sort of a Boy Scouts for fascists. In pre-World War II Hamburg, a group of swing kids—German teenagers who loved American big band swing music—defied the Nazis and the peer pressure of the Hitler Youth until they were either beaten and imprisoned or converted into polka-loving Aryans. Nazi Germany eventually banned American jazz music.
    It was a terribly flawed movie. Robert Sean Leonard played the defiantly idealistic swing kid, while Christian got to play his first dark character, Thomas, a former swing-kid-turned-Nazi who betrays his family and friends. Kenneth