Matt Damon and Christian Bale Reveal the Surprising Movie-Learned Skills They Use in Real Life
From playing the piano to speaking in specific foreign accents, Matt Damon and Christian Bale have acquired a ton of temporary expertise over the years as actors.
Some of those random skills have stuck with them though. Like the amateur race car driving skills they learned for their new film Ford v Ferrari, which are occasionally applicable to driving in Los Angeles, horseback riding, poker and more.
“I do think the driving skill is very practical,” Bale, 45, admits. “I do feel confident, I feel like justifiably, we’ve learned how to put a car through its absolute extremes and paces. It’s not just the speed, but also just testing brakes and really pushing that, and so I do feel good about that.”
“Fake fighting?” offers Damon, 49.
“I’ll win any fight as long as I could just miss you by an inch. Right?” says Bale.
“Yeah, as long as you agree to react to my punches. You can’t just swing at me,” adds Damon.
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Bale also reveals that he can be a bit showy with a rope.
“I can do a bit of trick roping,” he says. “It’s not in use every day, but I can do it a little bit. I learned that a while back. Horseback riding too, with that I could jump on [the horse] backward and whatnot.”
Damon adds: “You know what I learned from movie a long time ago, which I’m happy that I did? I had never played golf, and I learned how to play golf and for the last 20 years of my dad’s life we’d always play a round of golf, just me and him walking around together. That turned into something that was really good. And maybe someday I’ll do that with my kids too, but I haven’t played since he passed away. Also Poker I learned from a movie and I still play. That was fun.”
Both actors lament the fact that they can’t remember more of their former expertise. “It takes me a long time to learn anything and I forget it incredibly quickly,” says Bale.
“Isn’t that frustrating?” says Damon as Bale adds, “I wish it was the other way around.”
Ford v Ferrari is now playing in theaters.
