Christian Bale vs. Matt Damon on their epic 'Ford v Ferrari' fight — and whether Bourne could beat Batman

Kevin Polowy
·Senior Correspondent, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

The racing scenes are spectacular in the new sports drama Ford v Ferrari, which tracks Ford Motors' against-all-odds efforts to compete with the flashier Italian powerhouse Ferrari at the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.

But at the heart of the film is the budding friendship between the two men spearheading Ford's efforts, designer Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and racer Ken Miles (Christian Bale).

Their bond is cemented during one of the film's most entertaining non-racing sequences: a clumsy, hilarious, no-holds-barred wrestling match that involves weaponized grocery items and serious nipple-twisting.

"All those years of honing the craft of stunt fighting that Matt got from Bourne and I got from Batman, and there it is realized, the dream realized right there," a self-effacing Bale (who starred in The Dark Knight trilogy from 2005 to 2012) told Yahoo Entertainment during a recent sitdown in Los Angeles (watch above).

"I looked at that and said, 'That's what it was all for, all those weeks and months away from the kids,'" added Damon, who played CIA assassin Jason Bourne in a trio of films from 2002 to 2007 before reprising the role in 2016's Jason Bourne.

Though the sloppy fisticuffs look like an improvisational free-for-all, director James Mangold insists it was all carefully staged: "We choreographed it all, we figured out how it was going to work. Both guys I think really enjoyed it, mainly because they've probably been through so many hyper-choreographed sequences in their action careers, that it was fun to do something a little more real."

The fact that Bale and Damon go to (very short-lived) battle in Ford v Ferrari naturally led us to ponder a cinematic fantasy fight for the ages: Who would win in a bout between Batman and Bourne?

"The answer's so obvious," Damon shot back quickly (he clearly means Bourne), eliciting a sarcastic giggle from Bale.

"I would like to see Jason Bourne and Batman on the same side," Bale offered more diplomatically before the conversation went off the rails.

Of course, we can't forget that one of their Ford v Ferrari costars, Jon Bernthal, has also whooped his share of butt in Netflix's The Punisher. So what would happen if he joined the ruckus?

"The Punisher [would win]," asserted Bernthal, "100 hundred percent."

Ford v Ferrari is now in theaters.

Watch Bale and Damon talk about dramatic weight changes for film roles:

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