Christian Bale made less than the makeup artists on ‘American Psycho’
Christian Bale has enjoyed a fine career, to say the least. From starring in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy to landing iconic roles in titles such as The Machinist, Bale is one of the greatest character actors Hollywood has ever seen. With a penchant for method acting, Bale has taken the form of levels of authenticity that even the greats of old would be proud of. Now, with him starring in David O. Russell’s upcoming Amsterdam thriller, Bale looks set to add another gilded credit to his extensive list.
However, it is arguable that Christian Bale’s most iconic role is that of the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in 2000’s American Psycho. In a recent interview with GQ, he looked back on the period and revealed that he only secured the job after Hollywood golden boy Leonardo DiCaprio turned it down.
“Nobody wanted me to do it except the director. So they said they would only make it if they could pay me that amount,” Bale said. “I was prepping for it when other people were playing the part. I was still prepping for it. And, you know, it moved on. I lost my mind. But I won it back.”
However, the most fascinating part of Bale’s story was when he revealed that he was paid so little for the job that even the makeup artists were getting paid more than him. Today, with the pleasure of hindsight, this seems almost inconceivable due to the flick’s legendary status in popular culture.
The actor continued: “In honesty, the first thing was that I’d taken so long trying to do it, and they had paid me the absolute minimum they were legally allowed to pay me. And I had a house that I was sharing with my dad and my sister and that was getting repossessed. So the first thing was, ‘Holy crap. I’ve got to get a bit of money,’ because I’ve got ‘American Psycho’ done, but I remember one time sitting in the makeup trailer and the makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them. And so that was my motivation after that, was just, ‘I got to get enough that the house doesn’t get repossessed.'”
Another interesting admission Bale made was that many stars who made their names in the 1990s and early 2000s have Leonardo DiCaprio to thank for the success. Bale believes DiCaprio gets first dibs on all major roles due to his remarkable talent, but people got a chance only thanks to him turning them down.
“It’s not just me. Look, to this day, any role that anybody gets, it’s only because [Leo] passed on it beforehand,” Bale revealed. “It doesn’t matter what anyone tells you. It doesn’t matter how friendly you are with the directors. All those people that I’ve worked with multiple times, they all offered every one of those roles to him first. Right? I had one of those people actually tell me that. So, thank you, Leo, because literally, he gets to choose everything he does. And good for him, he’s phenomenal.”
