Tired of hearing about a certain American actor's difficulties with the Germans? How about a German director's delight with American actor and imdb's "favourite actor under 40", Christian Bale. Mekado Murphy does a little Q & A with anglofritz's favourite deutscher Regisseur, Werner Herzog, in today's NYT:

Q. How would you compare your working relationship with Christian Bale to the one with Klaus Kinski?

A. It’s hard to even try to compare. With Kinski it was always: How can I domesticate the wild beast, and how do I survive his next tantrum where he destroys the whole set? How do I make his utter madness and irresponsibility productive onscreen? This was not so with Christian. He was the most disciplined, wonderful man. And he has great emotion of depth. Christian was so dedicated to this film. He did things that an actor of his caliber normally would not do, like eating maggots or catching a live snake. You just name it. It’s unbelievable.

And you thought Robert De Niro was a dedicated method actor.