Christian Bale was R-rated on set

Forget the Joker, Gorr the God Butcher is the new twisted villain in town, and his antics are apparently too extreme for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s kid-friendly audiences. Christian Balle teased some of the Gorr scenes that hit the cutting room floor Thor: Love and Thunder—ranges from a Dance sequence by Kate Bush to self-inflicted damage to strip the character of his tattoos—but in a new interview with Vice versahe admits to pushing the boundaries for a Disney film.

“With Thor: Love and ThunderTaika [Waititi] and me, we kind of knew some of the stuff we were doing probably wasn’t going to end up in the movie, but we just wanted to push it and see,” explains Bale. “Ultimately, it is and should be a film that the whole family can enjoy. And Chris Hemsworth, a couple of times he looked at me, it was like Dude, that’s a little far. I don’t think anyone wants to see that unless it’s an R-rated movie. But it was a great pleasure to try. And we had a lot of fun doing certain scenes and taking certain scenes even if they didn’t end up in the final cut.”

The last cut—coming in about two hours—is almost anemic compared to the film’s reported 4+ hour first cut. Sonically, it must have been everywhere; Chris Hemsworth said this version was “like a Monty Python sketch,” but it obviously included Bale’s disturbing gorr scenes as well.

The eclectic mix might sound like catnip to MCU fans, but Waititi came out firmly against Release of a “Director’s Cut”. Not only does he “suck” director’s cuts in general, but of his own film he said, “It’s no good, four and a half hours.” We gotta believe Bale that Gorr was really, really messed up, man.