Q: What drew you to this period of China’s history?
ZY: This period of history is very common in China. Everyone knows this period of history. But to me, it’s really not the history itself; it could be any war, anywhere in the world. To me, it’s more the story. When I read Yan Geling’s book, I was more intrigued by the personal side of the story, from a 13 year-old girl’s perspective. Rather than it being a big epic history tale. So for my movie, the history is just the backdrop. It happens to be a really great story, happening in that period of history.

Q: Christian, had you always wanted to be in a Chinese movie?
CB: I’m not in a position yet – I think there are only one or two actors that are – where I can say ‘I want to be in a Chinese movie. Make it happen!’ I’m not in that kind of position. I was just fortunate enough that Yimou came to me with it. What I was looking for, and always am looking for, are new experiences. Certainly this was that. I love the idea of more crossovers in international filmmaking. There are so many wonderful directors, in so many countries, it’s a shame to limit yourself to America or Britain. Yimou is one of the finest storytellers around, so that’s how that kind of happened.

Q: What drew you to casting Christian Bale?
ZY: Because Christian is the best, and of course, I had to cast him! For me, I really needed an actor that gave me the confidence to work on this as a collaborator. The language he didn’t know. But Christian was able to help me polish the script. So really the script, from the beginning to the end, has changed a lot. And I couldn’t do any of that without Christian. So it was a great collaboration.

Q: Could you expand on that, Christian?
CB: There was already a character there, and Yimou felt that it was important to represent the westerners who had been there in Nanking, and established this safety zone. Obviously, the difference with the character of John Miller is that he’s more of a drifter. He’s not there intending to do that. He’s a refugee from the dust bowl, who is finding himself there, and pursing excess with this vengeance of raucousness and clown-like behaviour, which is later revealed is covering something up, as all loud people do. We actually cut away an awful lot of dialogue. There was much more dialogue in the original script, and we ended up paring it down. And Yimou allowed me to give him many options for the character, so he could pick and choose in the edit room.

Q: Was there much improvised on set?
CB: There was. It was a very, very pure form of collaboration. Often what happens is people start collaborating, which means sitting in a room talking about it too much. And really most of the time, that’s happening too much. The best way to communicate any idea is to actually just show somebody what the idea is. And so, yeah, I found our communication was just as adequate – if not far more articulate – than many of the English-speaking directors I’ve worked with.

Q: George, the little boy in the film, says “Life is a gift. And it’s not ours to throw away”. Do you see that as a key theme in the film?
ZY: Absolutely. This kind of theme you can see throughout the whole movie; the fact that life is sacred, precious and you can’t throw it away. That’s why there is a group of people, the prostitutes, who want to protect a more vulnerable group – the children. That’s why the whole theme is sacrifice, love and giving up your own life for others.

Q: Do you think your own character has thrown his life away?
CB: He had something that meant something to him, he lost it, and so life has become a meaningless pursuit of excess. But in all honesty, you need that sometimes. It’s not a waste of time. He needs it. He needs to go through that, before he comes to find himself in this situation where he can regain a sense of construction in his life again. We all go through those phases, those times when you’re wallowing and apparently destroying yourself. Sometimes you need to do that.

Q: Did your background on Empire of the Sun help at all?
CB: It didn’t help. It was intriguing. Returning a couple of decades later was interesting. But that had been the bubble of an American production within China. And this was a Chinese production, so it was a whole new experience.

Q: How do you compare Steven Spielberg to Zhang Yimou?
CB: I don’t like to compare directors! But they’re both two of the finest around. The wonderful thing about directors is that they don’t ever work together, so they don’t know how other people work. They all work  very, very differently.

Q: How was it to work with Paul Schneider, the only other Westerner in the film?
CB: It was very funny. Paul’s an excellent actor, and Yimou and I had talked about ‘Did we want another western character at some point?’ Somebody who could be an easy exit for John, somebody who could remind him of who he was. And then Paul arrived. There was the script, and then he quickly realised that we weren’t doing any of the words on that script page whatsoever! There was a lot of improvisation of that scene. We just knew the gist of what needed to be said, and just did it. But by that time, it was unusual for me. I’d got so used to not having such a direct conversation with anybody. It was weird for me, Paul suddenly being out there as well, and the conversation being so easy! I think he kept on talking to me and I kept on staring back at him, without saying a whole lot!

Q: And how did you find getting on with all the girls?
CB: Absolutely, yeah. They were very welcoming, both: the ladies and the choir girls. The ladies were all consummate actresses, really excellent. It was very funny, making those scenes. And the young girls were fantastic at crying – I was really worried about them when I first arrived because they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop crying! I don’t know about you, for me it takes a lot before I cry, and then when I do, I’m like ‘Ah, man! I’m spent. I’m done.’ You know what I mean? Like any scene I had, where it was emotional, it was two takes at the most and after that I was dry, there was nothing going on. These girls could do it at the drop of a hat. I wish I had that talent. It was amazing. They had the absolute realism that kids have – be able to cry and then stop it. So I’d be walking by, going, ‘These girls are going to get ill. I’m not really comfortable with this!’ I wanted to give them all a hug. And then Yimou would walk past, and they’d be crying, in character, and then he’d walk off and they’d look up at me and laugh. I was like ‘They’re professionals!’

Q: How was directing these fabulous children on set?
ZY: It was a three year process to select all the young girls, to make this movie. So first of all, I had to select the girls who eager to perform. And then the biggest challenge was to find the girls locally, from Nanking. They had to speak Nanking dialect authentically. After a lot of lessons, including teaching them how to sing, each one of them was really, really good. And they know they’re in a movie but they’re not affected by the history itself. They’re more focused on every single scene. And, yes, the thing they were really good at was to cry! They could cry instantly. You’d think all of them were really actresses – they’re geniuses!

Q: How do you prepare for a role like this?
CB: With this one, we created this backstory of a refugee from the dustbowl; how did he come to have these talents as a mortician? There are certain things where my personal interests lead me to do research that, in all honesty, may not be entirely necessary for the character. But you never know. There would be things…if you ever get a chance to go to a mortuary and work with a mortician, incredible – what these people do every day. I learned that. I learned how to do everything, in case Yimou wanted that. So I can go ‘I know how it was done in 1937.’ And then he can decide. But that’s how I always like to approach it, so I know as much as I can, and I can tell the director ‘Here is this’, so they can pick and choose if there is something interesting in there. And sometimes there’s nothing. But equally, with this one, he’s a lapsed Catholic. So there are catechism lessons as a kid, and confusion over the Committal Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer and getting it all mixed up. So then presenting it all to Yimou and seeing what he wants from that. I enjoy that process.

Q: What was the toughest challenge when approaching this film?
ZY: The biggest challenge for me was how to have Christian’s character, John Miller, organically come together with a group of Chinese characters. That’s the biggest challenge. Previously, there were movies like that. But the foreign characters never went into any great depth. And the character never developed, and it was never satisfying for anybody. It was almost like a trap. Immediately, people are thinking about the two nations coming together – a trap that people easily fall into. And I was very aware of that, and I didn’t want to fall into that trap. So that’s why I worked with Christian thoroughly to alter the script and make it work very organically. So we very carefully changed the script and reformed it, to make it is the way it is right now. That was a very difficult process for me.

Q: Did you notice any differences shooting in a Communist country?
CB: Looking at it from a political point of view, the seven-day working weeks was something you wouldn’t get much of in America, not without a lot of overtime to be paid! But Yimou has a very good heart, He has a very loyal crew to adore him that he keeps employed. Even though he could’ve worked everybody 24/7, he was very caring. The thing I noticed as well was the incredible speed that everything got built, which was a little bit unnerving. You go ‘Is it going to stand up?’ But for this movie, there was a vacant lot, and then the Japanese production designer built an entire town of old Nanking. He built a cathedral – concrete. This was not just a façade, Usually, you go to any western set, and it’s just going to be plywood behind it. If you knock it too hard, the whole thing will fall down. But this was a concrete cathedral that will be standing there in a hundred years from now! We could walk up and go right inside of the interior of the cathedral which were equally sturdy. There were two soundstages that didn’t exist before, built entirely for this movie. A hotel built entirely for the crew from the ground up. It was just phenomenal. There were no limits on what could be done. I’d love to work with Yimou again, I don’t know if that will be possible, but I certainly would like to work now in other countries.

Q: Is it different working in China than, say, America?
CB: There’s a different way to work between every single director on every single production. The radical difference between doing a Batman movie with Chris Nolan versus working with Terry Malick…they’re whole different planets you’re working on there. So to me it’s not vastly different. Obviously, the language…but you create again. And like I said, I found myself communicating better with Yimou than numerous English speaking directors. You get that connection or you don’t.

Q: Did your Chinese language skills improve?
CB: Thankfully I didn’t have to speak a whole lot of Chinese in the movie. You learn the dirty words and I learned how to shout ‘It’s a wrap’ when it wasn’t a wrap! Which is always fun!

Q: Did you feel pressure helming the most expensive Chinese production of all time?
ZY: Of course it’s a lot of responsibility for me. Not the money issue. But more because we had all different people from all different backgrounds, speaking different languages, and we had to work in harmony. So for me as a director that was the biggest challenge. Luckily, that went really well. But for me, maybe I will focus on medium or smaller budgets, because they’re easier to manage.

Q: You used the British team who rigged the explosions for Saving Private Ryan. How did you come to work with them?
ZY: One of the executive producers recommended this team, and because they’re so famous due to their work on Saving Private Ryan, I was very keen to work with them. They’re very professional and safety is always the most important principle. We did have another Chinese team that were assisting them and learning from them. But a lot of scenes I realised we couldn’t do, exactly according to my wishes, simply because they weren’t safe enough. So we did make a lot of adjustments, but we were able to reach a mid-point agreement. One thing I felt was very beneficial, in Chinese filmmaking, with explosions, a lot of accidents have happened in the past. Not on my films but in general…and when this team came to China, they taught us how to do scenes in a safe way. So we almost got a free lesson from them! Hopefully in the future, fewer accidents will start happening. The team itself, they probably don’t actually realise how much benefit they brought to Chinese filmmaking.

Q: Christian, is there something that draws you to playing dark characters?
CB: I think it’s just an interest in humanity. I’m interested in everything, where people can go to. Especially in a movie like this; the insanity of war, where soldiers are trained to do what our moral code throughout life teaches us not to do. Suddenly they’re being told the opposite; everything is turned on its head, as the abnormal becomes normal and atrocious things happen. And it happens terrifyingly often throughout the world, not just in Nanking.

Q: Did you manage to keep your anonymity while shooting in China?
CB: I must say, I continue to live my life in a very simple manner, and people tend to be very respectful and polite to me. Of course, you get recognised sometimes but it’s never so intrusive that it becomes a burden, as I see happen to some people, and I really appreciate that. In China, the movie has done incredibly well, so maybe it would be different if I went back there now, but we were also shooting out in a place 45 minutes out of Nanking, so there was really nobody to mix with except for the crew. Thankfully they all recognised me – I didn’t have to remind them! But that was it. I didn’t go to many of the big metropolises for an awful long time. But there was a very funny incident, where the producers felt like I needed a bodyguard while I was there. I’m not accustomed to that. I never have that. I always feels like it draws attention to you. But a really nice guy who was from the army told me he was there when Obama came and he was there when all these political heads of state came…and I said, ‘I’m not a political head of state. Nobody knows who the hell I am.’ So I said, ‘Can we take this a little bit easy and see how this goes?’ So the guy would walk ahead of me, and he’d tell me every step I had to walk down! We’d walk down a staircase and he’d present every step; I’d be stopping and go ‘Is there another? Oh, there’s another! OK!’ He was always dressed in black, 6ft 4, with wraparound shades and knuckle-dusters on his hand, with a big thing saying ‘bodyguard’. And I’d say ‘Could you go a bit more incognito?’ Which for him was taking off the knuckle-dusters! And there was one time I was walking down the street in Nanking, and there was a man walking a bit more slowly in front of us, and he touched the guy on the shoulder, picked him up, moved him to the side, and then presents the street to me! I was like ‘No, you can’t do this!’ So there was a great breaking in between the two of us. And really not necessary for me. Nobody has a clue who I am anyway! It was making people fascinated – like ‘Who the hell is this guy? Who is this idiot who thinks he can pick people up and move them over?’ But we got that worked out.

Q: Do you believe a jerk like John Miller can grow into a hero?
CB: You always have to look past what somebody is presenting to you. Like they say, always watch the quiet ones…but with John Miller, he is pursuing excess and he is acting like a clown. What is the reason for that? There is a reason why he’s drinking like crazy. There’s a whole lot more going on inside that he’s trying to pretend isn’t there. My experience with these loud people – you wait a little while, then they get quiet and there’s a story behind there. There’s something they’re desperately trying to cover up. They’re hoping they can make you look at this, so that you don’t notice what’s going on with the rest of them. So there’s always much more substance to that kind of a person than would initially meet the eye. And with him, he’s someone who has been running away from himself, through life, and then ends up being forced to find himself, find meaning again, in the most unlikely of places. He’s someone who is a journeyman travelling through; this would just be a story he’d tell over some beer in America one day and suddenly it becomes everything. And I think that’s fascinating. There’s no reason why a tragedy like the rape of Nanking should be a Chinese tragedy; it’s a human tragedy now. It’s everybody’s problem.