How Christian Bale and Mary Harron were nearly kicked off ‘American Psycho’
Of the many iconic roles that Christian Bale has played, perhaps none are as notorious as his excellent portrayal of the Wall Street banking serial killer Patrick Bateman in Mary Harron’s 2000 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel American Psycho.
Bale had been on the precipice of success when he got the role, and he revealed that Harron and himself “clicked” over their shared sick sense of humour. Bale noted, “I went to her apartment, and it was just her with a little camera. I didn’t approach it like the other actors had, where they were talking about ‘what’s his childhood, what’s the reason he’s become this?’ I was like, ‘ah, none of that really matters. He’s just like this alien.’ And so as we were doing the scene, I started laughing, and she started cracking up, and we both realised we had the same very sick sense of humour.”
Harron put her neck on the line in casting Bale when there had been several other more high-profile actors reading to take on the role. Bale added, “I so appreciate that because she had so many known actors who were stepping up and wanted to do it, and she said, ‘No, I want Christian.’ Even though all the financiers were saying, ‘We’re gonna give you no money.‘ And then actually kicked the two of us off.”
That’s right, even after all the hard work that Bale and Harron had done to prepare for the film, the producers actually removed them from the project. Bale explained, “We went and did a stage reading in New York for it. Willem Dafoe was there, Chloe Sevigny was there, Bret Easton Ellis was there. And then we got the money. But what our agents forgot to do was to include us in the package. So then we raised the money, and they said, ‘right, the two of you, bye-bye.'”
Bale admitted that he “went a little bit psycho” himself but was adamant about still being involved in the film. He said, “I just said, ‘No, I’m still making the film.’ And even though other people were cast, other directors were on board; I just kept on prepping. I would call Mary up, and she would say, ‘Christian, they’ve given it to other people.’ And I was like, ‘it doesn’t matter. We’re gonna make it.'”
He added, “All my friends were saying that to me. ‘What are you doing?’ I was turning down a couple of projects and kept on going, and lo and behold, it did eventually come back. So that felt like a great victory. Don’t doubt your gut instincts. You’re always going to bring something unique from anybody else.”
Fortunately for us, both Bale and Harron were reinstated on the film and went on to make one of the most iconic productions of the 21st century. The film helped Bale climb another rung on the ladder and also introduced the world to the severely demented mind of Patrick Bateman.
