This is completely unacceptable behavior on Bale's part. I've never seen anything remotely like this on a set in 35 years. It sounds as if it were not the first time Hurlbut had ruined a take, but that's not remotely a justification for a raging rant like this. Even if there were justification for being pissed off (and believe me, there are lots of times an intense scene is going on and someone screws it up just as things are coming together well, and those can piss off the Pope), it's the utter insensitivity to the humanity of the other man that makes this so reprehensible. Sometimes you have to yell, "Goddammit, stop talking, we're trying to work here!" But what happened here sounds like someone with extreme anger management issues. Hurlbut can be heard apologizing early on, but Bale keeps going for another 2.5 minutes. Absolutely unacceptable, and I have a hard time understanding why Hurlbut didn't walk out the door.

Years ago, Brett Butler (the comedienne, not the ballplayer) had a sitcom. She was so abusive of cast and crew that finally, after one overblown tirade, the producers (the same folks who brought you 3rd Rock From the Sun and That '70s Show) said, "You know, life's too short," and canceled their own show, despite it being a ratings hit. I was really proud of them for that. (They proved themselves to be incredibly good people to me personally when I worked for them in later years.) There's no excuse for that kind of behavior, but there's also no reason to tolerate it. A company may have too many millions sunk into a project to do what they ought to do, which is fire the bastard, but that's not behavior I would accept in a colleague. And, no, it's not typical.

Years ago, I did a play with Oscar-winner Mercedes McCambridge. One night, as we were getting ready to begin, I passed by a young and inexperienced actress and whispered the traditional, "Break a leg." She turned on me and hissed, "Don't talk to me, don't you see I'm concentrating?" At the act break, in the dressing room, McCambridge, who had been nearby when this exchange happened, started talking about how you could tell a real actor from a phony or a wannabe. She said, "You know, a real actor doesn't freak out if you speak to him just before he goes onstage, complaining that you're wrecking his concentration. A real actor is concentrating, which means that NOTHING can wreck his concentration. Concentration is the ability to filter out distractions. It doesn't mean you fall apart at them." The young actress got very red-faced, and I gave Mercy a hug just before we went back for Act II.