While looking for more Christian Bale comments about The Dark Knight to bolster my previous post, I came across this golden nugget in the quotes section of his IMDb page:

“At first, I was somewhat hesitant to do the role. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, as clear as day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened, and this little boy saw me. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me. He hugged me, and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said, ‘You’re my hero.’ And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job, but that I had made the right decision to play Batman. And I’ve never looked back on my decision to play Batman since.”

That’s it.

This guy is as Batman as Batman gets.