Christian Bale’s intense acting style in American Psycho was so subtle that it made his co-stars think it was “terrible.”
Josh Lucas and Chloe Sevigny, who shared the screen with Bale in the 2000 thriller, admitted to Vanity Fair that they initially thought his performance was subpar.
In a joint interview 25 years after the film’s release, Lucas recalled, “I distinctly remember thinking Christian Bale was terrible in the early stages of filming.” Sevigny nodded in agreement, suggesting that she had similar doubts.
Lucas portrayed Craig McDermott, Bale’s adversary and Patrick Bateman’s investment banker.
In the Bret Easton Ellis novel adaption directed and co-written by Mary Harron, Christian Bale, 50, plays a menacing figure who may or may not be a serial murderer, parodying 1980s white-collar American materialism and culture.
“I remember the first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false,” recalled Lucas, adding, “I now realise that it was this just f—ing brilliant choice that he was making… I didn’t realise what a subversive comedy it was. I didn’t realise the way that Mary was going to turn it on its head.”
“I don’t think that I thought he was bad,” responded Sevigny with a laugh. “I was just kind of confused, like, Why aren’t you being social?”
Explaining Bale’s “challenging” American Psycho process, the Boys Don’t Cry Oscar nominee said, “I’m very gregarious and silly and goofy, unbeknownst to the general public. When people take themselves so seriously, I kind of shut down, even though I take my work very seriously and I love acting and whatnot.”
The actress who portrayed Bale’s secretary Jean, Sevigny, went on to say that she was “really intimidated” by the leading man.
“I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego.”