Christian Bale credited as playing...
Alfred Borden
- Alfred Borden: So... we go alone now. Both of us. Only I don't have as far to go as you. Go. You were right, I should have left him to his damn trick. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry about Sarah. I didn't mean to hurt her... I didn't. You go and live your life in full now, all right? You live for both of us.
- Fallon: Goodbye.
- [after showing a little boy how to do a coin trick]
- Alfred Borden: Never show anyone. They'll beg you and they'll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up... you'll be nothing to them.
- Alfred Borden: Everything's going to be alright, because I love you very much.
- Sarah: Say it again.
- Alfred Borden: I love you.
- Sarah: Not today.
- Alfred Borden: What do you mean?
- Sarah: Well some days it's not true. Maybe today you're more in love with magic. I like being able to tell the difference, it makes the days it is true mean something.
- Alfred Borden: You went half way around the world, you spent a fortune, you did terrible things - really terrible things, Robert, and all for nothing.
- Robert Angier: For nothing?
- Alfred Borden: Yeah
- Robert Angier: You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces...
- Alfred Borden: I love you.
- Sarah: You mean it today.
- Alfred Borden: Of course.
- Sarah: It just makes it so much harder when you don't.
- Olivia Wenscombe: You married her. You had a child with her.
- Alfred Borden: Yes. Part of me did. But the other part... the other part didn't. The part that found you, the part that's sitting here right now.
- Olivia Wenscombe: You could be in some other cafe saying the same thing about me right now. It's inhuman to be so cold.
- Alfred Borden: See, sacrifice, Robert. That's the price of a good trick. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
- Sarah: Alfred, I can't live like this!
- Alfred Borden: Well, what do you want from me?
- Sarah: I want... I want you to be honest with me. No tricks, no lies, no secrets.
- [pause]
- Sarah: Do you... do you love me?
- Alfred Borden: Not today. No.
- [Borden shoots Angier in the waist, picking up the red rubber ball, when the two reveal their prestige to one another]
- Robert Angier: A brother... a twin. You were Fallon... the whole time?
- Alfred Borden: No. We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden.
- Robert Angier: [panting] Were you - were you the one who went into the box or the one who came back out?
- Alfred Borden: We took turns. The trick is where we would swap.
- [we see the flashback of both twins performing The Transported Man]
- Robert Angier: [breathing heavily] Cutter knew. Cutter knew. But I told him it was too simple, too easy.
- Alfred Borden: No... simple, maybe, but not easy. There's nothing easy about two men sharing one life.
- [we see the flashback showing one of the twins cutting the other twins' fingers off]
- Robert Angier: Wh-What about Olivia? And your wife?
- Alfred Borden: We each loved one of them.
- [we see the flashback of both lovers]
- Alfred Borden: I loved Sarah. He loved Olivia. We each had half a full life, really, which was enough for us. Just... but not for them. You see, sacrifice, Robert - that's the price of a good trick. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
- Robert Angier: [labored breathing] I've - I've made sacrifices.
- [wheezing]
- Robert Angier: Yes.
- Alfred Borden: It takes nothing to steal another man's work.
- Robert Angier: It takes everything.
- [we see the flashback of Angier killing the clone of himself while doing The Real Transported Man trick]
- Robert Angier: It took courage... it took courage to climb into that machine every night... not knowing... if I'd be the man in the box... or the prestige. Do you want - want to see. What it cost me? Y-you didn't see where you are, did you? Look. Look
- Alfred Borden: Look here... you went halfway around the world. You spent a fortune. You did terrible things... really terrible things, Robert. And all for nothing.
- Robert Angier: For nothing?
- Alfred Borden: Yeah.
- Robert Angier: You never understood... why we did this? The audience knows the truth - the world is simple... and miserable... solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder. And then you... then you got to see something very special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces.
- [Angier wheezes and exhales, collapsing dead, and Borden walks out of the theatre alone]
- Olivia Wenscombe: [referring to Angier] He wants me to come work for you and steal your secrets.
- Alfred Borden: What does he need my secrets for? His trick is top-notch. He vanishes, and then he reappears instantly on the other side of the stage - mute, overweight, and unless I'm mistaken, very drunk. It's astonishing, how does he do it?
- Alfred Borden: [realizes Fallon's buried after trading him back] Alive?
- Robert Angier: How fast can you dig?