‘The Machinist’: The movie Christian Bale said was “not the smartest thing to do”
It’s often felt like there isn’t a role or character that Christian Bale cannot put his wildly impressive talents as an actor to and deliver a truly rousing moment of modern cinema. With an Academy Award to his name, it’s no wonder that the English actor is considered one of the best of his generation and is fully deserving of his widespread acclaim.
It’s hard to look beyond Bale’s efforts as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, although his further appearances in the likes of The Fighter, The Big Short and Vice are also championed. And, of course, one ought not to forget his legendary effort as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, a performance that set the actor’s career’s wheel fully in motion.
Following on from the success of American Psycho, though, there were a handful of dud movies from Bale, and it wasn’t until the release of 2004’s The Machinist that the actor regained his initial promise, leading to his subsequent excellent career in the film industry, so the movie still serves as something of a turning point.
Directed by Brad Anderson and written by Scott Kosar, Bale plays Trevor Reznik, a factory machinist in the throes of paranoia, psychotic delusion and insomnia after being unable to sleep for an entire year. Bale made a phenomenal physical effort to play Trevor, losing 62 pounds in preparation for the role.
“Brad, when I turned up, was really stunned at how much weight I’d lost,” Bale once told GQ. “He went, ‘Oh, you really did it.’ He didn’t think I was really going to. That was just an outward show of [Trevor’s] guilt and being eaten alive, literally, by guilt. I’d come off of making a couple of films that I’d been less than satisfied with and just wanted something where I could become immersed and obsessed with it.”
The Machinist saw praise heaped upon Bale for his performance and also grossed $8.2million from a $5m budget. Still, the movie was not necessarily a guaranteed banker for the actor, but at that point in his career, following on from his varying-in-quality efforts of the early 2000s, it was the right time to take a gamble.
“I remember at the time, it was not the smart thing to do because there was no money in it, and it was like, ‘Bloody hell, I’m going to lose my place I’m living’, and I was quite newly married and all that,” Bale admitted. “So it wasn’t the business smart thing to do, but I’ve never been smart in a business way.”
The actor went on to explain that it was the allure of a professional challenge that drew him to The Machinist rather than any financial promise. “But it was something that I really wanted to challenge myself with and see if I could achieve that and could I fulfil the part I imaged Trevor should be played,” he said, “And I tested myself.”
