Christian Bale Mastered Driving School For 'Ford v Ferrari'

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Full Method Actor

Christian Bale has always been an actor who throws himself full throttle into any role he plays.

When he portrayed former Vice President Dick Cheney, he put on a significant amount of weight.When he portrayed Trevor Reznik in The Machinist, he dropped a lot of weight to appear dangerously thin in order to play the role in that psychological thriller.

Though Bale reportedly dropped about 70 pounds to fit into these racing cars, at least now he's doing something that doesn't directly affect his health.

Ford v Ferrari details Ford's battle against the racing car giant, a fight which came to a head during the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Before then Ferrari was the gold standard when it came to racing. As Ford v Ferrari hopes to show, Ford was about to step in and change all that with the Ford TG 40.

Bale stars alongside Matt Damon in the film, which was released Nov. 15. While there has been some debate as to who actually stars in the movie, whether it's Damon or Bale, the movie looks like a super fun ride.

He Learned From the Best

Bale's race car trainer had nothing but high praise for the actor.

Car and Driver magazine spoke with stunt coordinator Robert Nagle about his experience training Bale to race cars.

Nagle explained how he put Bale through the ringer, and Bale didn't flinch.

"I would hound Christian, and he didn't bobble once. When I pressure people like that I can usually see when they stop driving their car and start watching me in their mirrors. But he never bobbled and never went off. I have to say that he’s hands down the best actor I’ve ever trained,” Nagle said.

High-Stakes Training

Nagle says he took Bale to the Bondurant High Performance Driving School to teach the actor how to successfully operate race cars and look authentic doing it.

"I took Christian for two reasons. First, I wanted him to understand what a race car driver is, mentally and physically."

Further, Nagle says he also wanted to introduce Bale to Bob Bondurant, the school's founder, "because Bob is from that era."

And Nagle, who has raced extensively, wanted Bale to meet school founder Bob Bondurant "because Bob is from that era."

Hoping For a Clean Race

Motor Biscuit has also weighed in on the movie, and had a great analogy to explain what the odds were against Ford at the time:

That's saying a lot.

Viewers will ultimately decide whether Ford v Ferrari successfully crosses the finish line.