American Psycho actor admits Christian Bale was 'intimidating' while on set of movie
One of the stars of American Psycho has revealed that she was 'intimidated' by Christian Bale on set.
Apparently there's a remake of the iconic film that released in 2000 in the works, but it'll have a hard time measuring up to the original, which has become an incredibly recognisable movie and developed quite the cult following.
It's a satirical psychological horror based on a book of the same name and stars Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York investment banker who seems to be murdering people around him, while the vapid and superficial world he inhabits barely notices the killer in their midst.
Part of the cast was Chloë Sevigny, who played Jean, Patrick Bateman's secretary who he very nearly murders with a nail gun but ends up not doing after his fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) interrupts him by calling.
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In an interview with Vanity Fair where she spoke alongside Josh Lucas, who played Bateman's colleague Craig McDermott in American Psycho, they discussed what it was like to perform alongside Bale.
Lucas remembered thinking that the first time he saw Christian Bale perform he thought he was 'terrible', describing the actor's performance as seeming to be 'so false'.
However, the actor said he later realised that it was a 'f**king brilliant choice' from Bale that worked brilliantly when the movie was done, with Lucas saying he 'didn't realise what a subversive comedy it was' at first.
Sevigny said she ended up feeling a bit 'intimidated' by Bale's method acting, saying: "I was trying to respect his process, which I found challenging because 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.
"I was really intimidated by his process and intimidated by him, and I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego.
"It was a really challenging dynamic for me, but I don’t think that I thought he was bad. I was just kind of confused, like, why aren’t you being social? I wasn’t even that aware of what the Method thing was.
"I never had any formal training; I think I was just kind of 'fake it until you make it'. But the whole Method thing, I was like, What even is this approach? It was very intimidating."
She then said Bale had 'a really interesting trajectory' from being a child actor to a method actor as an adult, and she was 'curious' about him.
Both actors agreed that while they were making American Psycho they didn't really know what the movie was going to be, with Lucas saying saying he 'sure didn't' and Sevigny admitting she 'didn’t know it was going to become what it did and have the legs that it has had'.
Lucas said he had 'nothing but admiration' for Bale's performance, drawing a line between him and 'bad method actors' by saying that Bale was 'not paying attention to f**king anything else but what he’s doing' while a bad method actor would be 'actually kind of distracting with the fact that their process is more important than anything or anybody else'.
He said that since American Psycho came early in his career, he admitted to co-star Willem Dafoe that he was nervous, only to be reassured by Dafoe telling him 'if you're not nervous, something's wrong'.
LADbible have contacted Christian Bale's representatives for comment.
Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, Christian Bale
Joe Harker