Christian Bale graces the June 2009 cover of GQ magazine. Check out some highlights below:

Please tell us Terminator Salvation is going to rock. Please tell us the title represents what this fourth installment will do for the franchise.
Look, I hate to throw people under the bus for making movies I don’t think are very good. But for Salvation to be considered with any legitimacy, you have to throw number three [Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines] under the bus. It began to spoof the whole thing. To me, that was a sign that the franchise was dead, the mythology was finished.

The bodybuilding and unbuilding you’ve done for your roles is alarming—the former all the more so for its being accomplished without any animal protein.
Actually, I’m in and out of the vegetarianism now. But yeah, the majority of the building up you’re talking about was done when I was still a vegetarian.

So…outside of your roles, do you have a history of putting yourself in situations where you have to test yourself physically or even court danger?
Definitely. Though the one that stands out to me wasn’t physically demanding or dangerous. One of the places where we lived when I was growing up had this big wood out the back. And starting when I was about 8, I used to enjoy just walking alone through the wood late. Eleven p.m. Midnight. Later. Deep into the woods. It was terrifying. And I wasn’t allowed to look behind me, no matter what noises I heard. That was the point. That thing. The fear. To go into some deep place, a well of fear, that you’ve never been to before and that you didn’t know the way out of. Not looking behind, not turning around, just going deeper and deeper into those woods. I always enjoyed that.

Termination Salvation opens in theaters this Friday, May 22.

Check out the full Christian Bale feature at GQ.com.