“I remember his first day, I was excited to meet him, I’m a big fan of his standup,” Bale told IndieWire. “Then he arrives, and he’s doing some things… David [O. Russell] told him to tell me some stories that I didn’t know he was gonna tell me, which is the way David works often. And I was loving it.”

Bale continued, “But Chris is so bloody funny and I found that I couldn’t act, because I was just becoming Christian laughing at Chris Rock. So I had to go to him, I went, ‘Mate, I love talking to you, and we have mutual friends, but I can’t do it anymore. Because David didn’t ask me to make this film so he could just watch me giggle. He wants me to be Burt and I’m forgetting how to be Burt.’”

“I often meet these incredible people, but I isolate myself,” he said. “Because if I get to know people too much, I find I just don’t believe what I’m doing in the scene.”

Amsterdam premieres on October 7.