Christian Bale is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of all time. Impressing not just the up-and-coming stars but also his peers and even legendary visionaries, the Batman portrayer is now listed among the most successful as well as rich celebrities in the entertainment industry. But success didn’t come to him easy.
In fact, for his breakthrough role as Partick Bateman in his $34 million 2000s movie, American Psycho, he had taken inspiration from the renowned Tom Cruise and one other mega celebrity that fans can’t imagine even in their wildest dreams to have influenced Bale.
Christian Bale Was Inspired By Tom Cruise For $34 Million Breakout Role
Christian Bale played the protagonist Patrick Bateman, who was obsessed with wealth and status to the point of murder in the 2000 classic, American Psycho. Though considered his breakout role, The Dark Knight star went to immense lengths to fully understand his psycho character.
In fact, Bale was highly inspired by Tom Cruise after watching him on the David Letterman’s show. As revealed by director Mary Harron,
“We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. And then one day he called me, and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy.”
Not just this, but even the Batman Begins star shared how Cruise was the perfect inspo for his psycho character.
“I mean, look, if someone had landed at that time and he was looking around for cultural alpha males, business-world alpha males, et cetera, then Tom Cruise certainly would have been one of those that he would have looked at and aspired to be and attempted to emulate. And he’s still a leading man now.”
Thus, he got the Mission: Impossible star’s pictures stuck inside his trailer to constantly remind him through his method acting how he had to act.
“So yeah, I had pictures of him inside the trailer, as I did other people, and ’80s models that Bateman probably would have looked at and tried to imitate. And certainly that megawatt smile with the perfect teeth.”
And that gave birth to the perfectly nailed character of Patrick Bateman by Christian Bale, inspired by a single viral interview of Tom Cruise on the Letterman show.
This Highly Unlikely ‘Mega Celebrity’ Influenced Christian Bale As Well
Yet, Tom Cruise wasn’t his only inspiration. As it turns out, another ‘mega celebrity’ ended up influencing Christian Bale to do justice to his role, and this was none other than the ex-US President, Donald Trump.
“Likewise, Donald Trump would have been somebody he would have looked at and said, ‘Ah, right. I need to have a little bit of that as well.’ … If Bateman were around today he’d probably be inspired to run for president.”
A chilling thought, yes. But be it Cruise or Trump – the character was portrayed only after Christian Bale channeled his inner Patrick Bateman, so most of the credit for the fantastic reviews it received goes to none other than The Dark Knight star himself.
You can watch American Psycho on Vudu.
Source: MovieMaker
