MAGIC MEN CHRISTIAN BALE, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN CONJURE THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH `THE PRESTIGE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

With their current release, ``The Prestige,'' and their upcoming sequel to ``Batman Begins,'' director Christopher Nolan and actor Christian Bale are turning into one of the most exciting teams in movie history.

Before the two British Chrises hooked up for the hit Bat-revival, Nolan had made a name for himself helming super-smart, very tricky thrillers such as ``Memento'' and ``Insomnia.'' Bale made an auspicious debut as the child star of Steven Spielberg's ``Empire of the Sun,'' and since then has followed his own distinctive career path, singing and dancing in bizarre musicals (``Swing Kids,'' ``Newsies''), starring in outrageous cult, well, outrages (``American Psycho,'' ``Velvet Goldmine''), and dieting down to skeletal dimensions for ``The Machinist.''

``The Prestige,'' based on sci-fi writer Christopher Priest's novel, stars Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival, Victorian-era stage magicians who take their obsessive competition to maddeningly complex, wicked extremes. It enabled the two Chrises to explore new avenues of collaboration. ``The Dark Knight,'' their second Bat-movie, starts shooting in February.

Q: Who approached whom about working together again?

BALE: I read ``The Prestige'' both before and after we'd finished ``Batman Begins.'' But I wasn't sure if Chris really just wanted to see me as Bruce Wayne and that's it, and he wouldn't want to work with me in anything else. So I contacted him and raised that question, told him that I really liked the character and could do this very well. Fortunately, he believed me.

Q: And you like Christian, precisely, why?

NOLAN: One of the reasons why Christian is terrific to work with is that he takes what he does very, very seriously, but he doesn't take himself very seriously. He just has a very grounded approach to life and has a sense of humor about himself. He's capable of extraordinary intensity and really has the edge that you need from that, but he's very personable, easygoing and flexible. He's quite a find in that regard. It's a pleasure to work with him, and I'd like to continue that.

Q: Was there much of a difference working together this time?

BALE: In the way that actors are obviously shape-shifters and those are the ones that I admire most, Chris is really a shape-shifter in the way that he went from one style of directing to a very different one. He really wanted to be able to move very quickly on this, turn on a dime and have us ready to approach scenes in different ways. That wasn't possible with ``Batman,'' because it had such enormous set-ups and any changes required an awful lot of time to switch around. So it was nice to be able to work in a much more spontaneous manner.

NOLAN: This was much more of an actor's piece, really. The difficulty of playing Bruce Wayne should not be underestimated; it's a very hard role to pull off. But this was much more about the actors define everything, let their movements dictate the way we shot the scene. I saw Christian really relax into that, really focus on the craft and be able to do a five-page scene in a flow. It was really fun to be able to do that.

Q: Beside working with Chris again, what made you want to be in ``The Prestige''?

BALE: I like the era, and how you could present magicians in that era, which was very different, obviously, from now. They really were kind of these potential shamans. Total con job, obviously, but lack of knowledge of science and no revelations of how magic was done at the time made people wonder who these wizards were. And this commitment, this obsession he has; this need for secrets in his livelihood and, much more strongly, the need for secrets in his own life, even if that is at the cost of his loved ones. Essentially, this love of his magic and his potential goes back for many, many years and supersedes all else.

Q: How were the magic aspects of the piece approached?

NOLAN: You can't impress people with stage magic in film; they're too aware of camera tricks and all of that. The idea was always to create a narrative that functioned according to the principles of a magic trick.

Q: Some critics have complained about that story strategy.

NOLAN: People watch films in very different ways. Part of the substance of the film we've made is to explore that. I made it very clear to the studio very early on that there would be no unified audience response. There can't be consensus about the way the film is watched. The film opens by asking, ``Are you watching closely?'' It's a way of saying, ``You want to know the secret, but you don't really, you're not really looking.'' There is a certain challenge to the audience to pay attention. Hopefully, not in an arrogant or obnoxious way, but the film is about narrative, and the creation of narratives within narratives.

If you see the film a second time, you don't have any cause to complain. We play very fair with the audience.

Q: Since ``Batman Begins,'' you've worked with some of the most acclaimed directors around. You were in Terrence Malick's ``The New World,'' and you've got Werner Herzog's ``Rescue Dawn,'' Todd Haynes' ``I'm Not There'' and David Ayer's ``Harsh Times'' all coming out soon. Did the kid who made ``Newsies'' ever think he'd come this far?

BALE: We all, hopefully, learn from our mistakes. I feel very happy with the way things are going right now. I've been able to balance doing such a big movie as ``Batman'' and feeling incredibly satisfied with the result of that, with also doing much smaller, less commercial movies, but movies which I very much want to see myself. And mixing it all up; y'know, it's a good variety.

Q: Where does working with Nolan fit in that overall scheme of things?

BALE: I've gotten a great deal out of it and I hope it's mutual. I wasn't interested in making another ``Batman.'' I saw him as a very particular type, so I went for it, I did it, and Chris loved it. And the movie worked well; I was loving what he was doing. Whether it doesn't happen for a while after doing the second one, I feel at some point we'll continue working on things. I think he's one of the most interesting filmmakers around, and one of the best. I'm very fortunate to have established this early relationship with him.

Q: Speaking of the next Batman movie, tell us everything there is to know about ``The Dark Knight''?

BALE: I know nothing. It's like the NSA over there.

NOLAN: The script is coming along. It's not at all based on Frank Miller's ``Dark Knight'' comics. We have access to the entire history of Batman in the comics, so before we start work we bury ourselves in all the different work of a lot of great writers and artists -- including Frank Miller, obviously, but many more as well.

Q: We know Heath Ledger will be playing the Joker, and of course Christian and Michael Caine will reprise their roles. But, well, the world needs to know: Is Katie Holmes coming back?

NOLAN: I hope so. We don't yet know exactly what's going on with all of the returning characters and actors. But as soon as I finish the script, I'll be making calls and knocking on doors and things.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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Something's up their sleeves

To play top-notch, turn-of-the-century magicians in ``The Prestige,'' Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman studied with well-known prestidigitators Ricky Jay and Michael Weber.

So they're great fun at parties now, right?

``I'm bloody awful at party tricks because everyone thinks I'd be good at them,'' Bale grouses.

``I know the beginning of it and I know the end of it, but our advisers would never teach me the entire trick. I respected this very much because they recognized, as my character says in the movie, that the value of magic is in the mystery. You tell people how it's done, and that's it. It's not only not interesting anymore, it's bloody annoying once you find out how it's done.''

Then Bale amends his words with, ``The only exception to that, I would say, is sleight-of- hand. That I found even more stunning when they showed me how they do it. I admired that immensely, just the hours that go into it -- basically, the lifetime that these guys devote to it.''

Bale's own grandfather was a member of London's Magic Circle. But by the time Christian was old enough to learn a few tricks, ``It was more like he had a chest of old tricks up in the attic, but most of them were sort of busted, so he would describe how it had been done before.''

Jay and Weber were consistently impressive, however, on and off the set.

``Just their fluidity,'' Bale marvels. ``They're, like, sitting down, having a bit of breakfast or whatever, and this is disappearing and this is coming out here and they're pulling that there. We're sitting in an office with fluorescent lighting and he's got no sleeves and he's telling me, `I'm about to do this to you,' and you go, `No, you're not,' and then he does it.''

-- B.S.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) PRESTO STRANGE-O

The chemistry behind making of `The Prestige'

(2) Christian Bale, above

(3) Christopher Nolan, left

Box:

Something's up their sleeves (see text)