The co-star who thought Christian Bale was a bad actor: “I watched him and he seemed so false”
Christian Bale was lucky enough to secure his golden ticket into Hollywood when he was a child, making his second-ever feature film appearance in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. His role was widely acclaimed, practically cementing Bale’s place in the industry. Since then, he has become one of Britain’s biggest stars, although he is best known for his roles in Hollywood productions, like 2000’s American Psycho.
The actor wasn’t the first choice to play the iconic protagonist, Patrick Bateman, with actors like Brad Pitt and Billy Crudup being considered before him. Once director Mary Harron met Bale, however, she knew he was the right fit for the part, but the studio wasn’t convinced that the British actor had what it would take to play a New York yuppie. Instead, the heartthrob of the era, Leonardo DiCaprio, was pushed to play the role, but Harron just couldn’t see how the floppy-haired teen icon could possibly portray such a demanding and frightening character.
In the end, Harron and Bale are accepted by the studio, and the actor embodies the character scarily well. To prepare for the part, Bale had to undergo extensive training to maintain a physically impressive body, putting in shifts at the gym six days a week. He also turned to a little bit of method acting, speaking in an American accent as much as possible to get into the role – he didn’t go as far as murdering people and running around naked with a chainsaw.
Bale’s performance allowed him to become more well-known in Hollywood, and the film remains a favourite for many, mainly due to Bale’s beguiling portrayal of the terrifying yet hilarious Bateman. To get into the mind of the cold and soulless businessman – whose love of Huey Lewis and the News and bloodshed defined him as one of the most bizarre characters to emerge from the era – Bale avoided many of his co-stars to prevent them from building a sense of trust with him.
Yet, for Josh Lucas, who played Craig, one of Patrick’s colleagues, he initially thought that Bale’s performance was “terrible.” In conversation with Chloë Sevigny, who portrayed Patrick’s secretary whom he narrowly spares from his power drill, Lucas revealed (via Vanity Fair), “I didn’t realize what a subversive comedy it was. I didn’t realize the way that Mary was going to turn it on its head. I don’t know if you felt this way, but I actually truly remember thinking that Christian Bale was terrible.”
With Lucas playing a character who was meant to take Patrick completely seriously, he didn’t realize how satirical the movie was actually meant to be, leaving him wondering why Bale’s performance had something so off about it. “I remember the first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false—and I now realize that it was this just fucking brilliant choice that he was making.”
Lucas further praised Bale, stating, “That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already, and that he was capable of having these crazy layers going on in what he was doing. I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but [it] was exactly the opposite.”
