Christian Bale reveals the thing that worried him about ‘American Psycho’: “Ironically, right?”
Despite many starring roles, from Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy to Dick Cheney in Vice, Christian Bale is arguably best known for playing the smouldering villain Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. The role finally cemented his place in Hollywood after beginning his career as a teenager, with critics unable to avoid his mesmerisingly terrifying performance as the yuppie serial killer.
Bale wasn’t the first choice for the project, although director Mary Harron was adamant she wanted the British star as soon as she auditioned him. Yet, the studio simply thought Bale wasn’t well known enough, with Leonardo DiCaprio becoming a strong contender for the role instead. Yet, Harron just couldn’t see the floppy-haired teen heartthrob, fresh off the back of Titanic and Romeo + Juliet, playing the cold, vain, and delusional character.
Harron and Bale were initially fired from the project since the director didn’t want anyone else to be in the leading role, but after much deliberation, the studio brought them back. Bale knew this was his chance to impress, and he dedicated himself firmly to the part by staying in character as much as possible. He maintained his American accent when the cameras stopped rolling, truly embodying Bateman as much as he could without actually becoming him, of course.
The film, which also starred Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Chloë Sevigny, Jared Leto, and Justin Theroux, was a success, and it continues to be loved by many 25 years later. Yet, an issue that has come to plague the movie’s popularity is its association with the kind of masculinity it sets out to satirise. Based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis, which aimed to call out toxic forms of heteronormative masculinity and capitalist culture, the film – which reached a wide mainstream audience – seemed to go over certain audience members’ heads.
Online, you can often find male social media users idolising Bateman, adorning their bedroom walls with the movie poster or even dressing up as him for Halloween, so much so that many women have taken to labelling these kinds of men as the ones to steer clear of. The idolisation and misinterpretation of the movie by many viewers has become somewhat of a meme – never trust a man with American Psycho in his Letterboxd ‘Top 4’, people often comment.
This is actually something that Bale himself was worried about when working on the film, and his fears were realised when he met some male fans of the character. Talking to GQ, he revealed, “When there still was the Wall Street trading floors and everything, I went and visited all different levels of people at Wall Street.”
When he met “the guys on the trading floor,” before the film had even been made, “a bunch of them were going. ‘Patrick Bateman,’ and patted me on the back and going ‘Oh yeah, we love him.’ And I was like, ‘Ironically, right?’, and they were like, ‘What do you mean?’”
Bale was confused, considering that Ellis’ story is so clearly meant to be a joke, but for the people who actually lived like Bateman, it didn’t feel like such an extreme story – which is quite a scary thought. “So it was always worrying, even back then. But you know, clearly, it’s a satire on capitalism in the ‘80s and, as such, is so bloody far-fetched and ridiculous that, to me, I can’t help but think it’s hilarious,” Bale concluded.
