Christian Bale as Batman is undoubtedly one of the greatest Batman of all time. He was lucky enough to be one of only five actors to appear in all three Nolan Batman films and to appear in all three entries: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
Everyone knows him as Batman, but before he was Batman, he was Bateman. Christian Bale’s role as Patrick Bateman in the psychological thriller American Psycho was a breakthrough role for him. And it was this movie from which he stepped up his game.
The Prestige actor revealed that the director of American Psycho, Mary Harron, desperately wanted him cast as Patrick Bateman, and she was the one who fought to keep him in the lead role.
Mary Harron Recognized Christian Bale Would 100% Fit the Role of Patrick Bateman
Mary Harron was courting other actors, too, including Billy Crudup, for the role. Before Christian Bale, it was Johnny Depp who first tapped in, but he turned it down. Then, the Titanic actor Leonardo DiCaprio was slated to play Bateman, and again, he couldn’t get to play it for other reasons.
When American Psycho was celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2020, Harron told Vulture, “nobody was quite right for the part” until she met Bale.
The director went on to say that initially, Bale struggled to do Bateman’s accent, but that didn’t stop her from casting him as the lead in the film. She recognized he was “100 percent” into the role, even though his body wasn’t quite ready yet. Harron remembered and said:
“He was this skinny English kid. I said, ‘Christian, have you ever been to a gym?’ He said no. And I said, ‘Well maybe you should go to a gym, because Patrick Bateman works out, so just get a gym membership.”
She continued and said that he was so determined that two weeks later, he’d totally transformed himself:
“I had no idea how obsessive Christian was or what I was unleashing with this kind of casual comment.”
Since then, she understood that Bale would be the best choice for the role in her movie — and she wasn’t wrong after all.
Christian Bale’s Strong Work Ethic in American Psycho was Admired By All
Christian Bale confirmed in an oral history with MovieMaker for the movie’s 20th anniversary that he had “never been to a gym” in his life before that.
But he developed the rock-hard abs and pecs to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho — a character whose morning routine consists of doing 1,000 crunches.
Bale’s costar Chloë Sevigny (Patrick Bateman’s secretary, Jean) said that it was hard to adjust to Bale’s intense method acting style.
Guinevere Turner (Elizabeth) said that Bale was so committed that:
“He never spoke in his real accent and he never socialized with anyone.”
Other supporting cast members, like Matt Ross (Bateman’s closeted gay colleague, Luis Carruthers), also admired Bale’s “incredible work ethic.”
The director, Mary Harron herself added:
“We were filming the business-card scene and I remember that Josh Lucas and Justin Theroux came up to me after one of the takes and said [Bale] breaks into a sweat at the same time … every time.”
No doubt Bale’s obsessive approach to American Psycho allowed him to transform his body and play the best he could ever. His hard work while making this movie proved to be a turning point in his career.
American Psycho can be rented on Apple TV.
Source: Yahoo Entertainment
