For all of the ridicule Christian Bale received for his 2008 tirade on the set of Terminator Salvation, it turns out the Oscar winner is a kindhearted guy, visiting with victims of the shooting at The Dark Knight Rises screening in Aurora, Colorado, and flying the family of a 4-year-old cancer patient to have lunch with him at Disneyland. And now the actor has put a smile on the face of an 8-year-old Batman fan who's battling leukemia.

As Heat Vision reports, Bale called Zach Guillot Friday morning for a 10-minute conversation about the boy's favorite subject, the Dark Knight. In a video uploaded by his family (below), a shy Zach is encouraged by his mother to tell the star about his realistic Batman costume and his cardboard Batmobile.

"The whole point of the movie is anybody can be Batman," Bale told the boy. "Anybody can be as strong as that and help people and put good out into the world."

You can read more about Zach and his fight with leukemia on his Facebook page.