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How Does Bad Boy Christian Bale Get Away With It?

Tue., Feb. 3, 2009 1:20 PM PST by Leslie Gornstein

Mike Marsland/WireImage.com

How can actors like Christian Bale keep getting work if they blow up like he did? I'd get fired in a second.
—Amy, Beverly Hills

Are you guaranteed, by a rate of 71 percent, to make your employer millions in profits every time you're hired? Christian Bale sure is.

That's according to an index called the Ulmer Scale, which measures bankability. Oh, and it's all producers care about.

"Money trumps all," casting director and author Bonnie Gillespie tells me. "Plus, the guys who are making the hiring decisions don't have to hang around on a set dealing with the blowups."

Any actor with a ratio over 50 can pretty much light a string of puppies on fire and still work, Gillespie says. "People will just say that financially, it's worth the attitude."

Which celebs (other than you) Twitter?
—Blessed Princess, via Twitter

Per a fellow Answer B!tch fan on Twitter: Heroes superchunk Greg Grunberg. And some kid who's doing camera commercials.

Do agents still go to plays or local theaters to find new talent?
—Drama Princess, via Twitter

Yes. But more often they head to camps and acting schools. Take Stagedoor Manor, in upstate New York, one of the best-known performing arts camps. Agents and managers go up there every year looking for promising moppets. Last year, casting directors for the upcoming Fame movie went up there, for example. As for acting schools, agents like to go to places like Applause Theatrical Workshops, the Big Apple thespian training ground where celebrities often send their kids to learn the craft.

Why are people so obsessed with Twilight? It's annoying and I wish it would stop.
—Mighty Molly Cule, via Twitter

It's a masterful combination of asexual love (until marriage, natch) and the kind of undying devotion that can only come from someone who, you know, can't die. And that's not just me talking. That's real analysis I read in real-live newspapers.

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