He had no positive role models when it came to marriage and did not have a high opinion of it - until he met Sibi Blazic. They've been together ever since.
Method actor Christian Bale had given up on marriage after growing up in a family full of failed marriages but destiny had something else in store for him. He even went on record to say that he never planned to marry because his idea of marriage wasn't healthy until he met Sibi Blazic. That was more than 19 years ago.
"I never planned to marry. Everyone was divorced in my family so I didn't have very healthy ideas about marriage," he told Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). When he met the make-up artist/personal assistant, "suddenly it seemed a fantastic idea."
He met her through Winona Ryder, who was his friend then. Sibi was working as her personal assistant when they met. In 2000, the couple eloped to Las Vegas, when he was 26 and she 30, and have been together ever since. Today, the couple have two lovely children, daughter Emmeline, 13, and son Joseph, 4. They celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary on January 29, a day before his 45th birthday, this year, by casually riding bikes along the Californian coastline.
"And nothing can prepare you for fatherhood. It's the best thing ever. I don't want to leave my daughter's side for one second," he had told Easy Living Magazine before the birth of his son. He keeps his personal life private as much as possible, but in a rare interview with Esquire in 2010, he said, "I’ve got incredible pride for my family. I’ve absolutely fallen into that cliché of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly, but it’s not what I’m about in terms of being an actor. I don’t want people to know about that.”
Sibi has been a real partner for Christian, and his greatest supporter. He has donned many characters through his career and won many awards, all of which he thinks is because of her, according to SMH. When he won the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Fighter, he thanked his wife, saying, "I truly believe you can't celebrate something like this without having your partner with you. She's had to be married to so many different characters over our marriage. I know that it would be impossible to do it without her. She's such a good, strong woman. I owe everything to her."
She was even by his side in one of the Batman films. She was a stunt driver in The Dark Knight Rises. "My wife was a stunt driver," he told The Wall Street Journal in 2014. "She was chasing me through the city in Batman. She was driving one of the cop cars. She can do 180s and stunts and all that. She terrifies me. My wife terrifies me."
He may be known for his fury on the set of a film, but his children bring out his softer and warmer side. He recently thanked his children, whom he shields away from the public eye, and called them "Banana and Burrito" lovingly in his acceptance speech at the Golden Globes.
“Thank you to my beautiful wife who said less is more,” Bale said. “Say less right now, she knows the dumb crap that can come out of my mouth sometimes. I can sink and ruin a perfectly good movie and a so-so career in one speech. I wouldn’t be working without her," according to People Magazine. He continued, “And thank you for our beautiful children, Banana and Burrito. They’ve given me a love and a soul I never thought possible.”
References:
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a8920/christian-bale-interview-1210/
