Christian Bale (22 page)

Christian was still not confident the part was his, so he made his move on Harron when he attended the Toronto Film Festival in August 1997.

As luck would have it, while at the festival promoting well-received screenings of
Metroland
with Emily Watson, Christian met Harron's younger sister Kelly, an actress and producer. Knowing who she was, Christian struck up a conversation with her at The Courthouse, a club in downtown Toronto.

He completely charmed Kelly into bed that night
and
also finally won over Mary Harron, and she offered him the part. Kelly Harron had a bit part in
American Psycho
as a bartender and began dating Christian during the shoot, although the relationship soon fizzled shortly after filming ended.

Unfortunately, things started to unravel when Harron took the project to Lionsgate. Christian was very confident that Lionsgate would fund the project. Lionsgate had picked up North American
distribution rights for
Metroland
and
All the Little Animals
, and it seemed that they were interested in investing in Christian's career. However, by April 1998, without Harron or Christian's knowledge, Lionsgate offered the part to DiCaprio, who at that point was the most bankable star in the world thanks to the monstrous success of
Titanic
. The movie company had also agreed to pay DiCaprio $20 million for the part—more than triple the small film's original $6 million budget. And to top it off, they wanted Oliver Stone to direct.

So when Lionsgate issued a press release during the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and announced to the world that DiCaprio and not Christian would be starring in
American Psycho
, Harron threatened to resign in protest. She insisted: “Leonardo wasn't remotely right for the part. There's something boyish about him. He's not credible as one of these tough Wall Street guys. Besides, he brought way too much baggage with him. I did not want to deal with someone who had a thirteen-year-old fan base. They shouldn't see the movie. It could've got us into a lot of trouble.”

DiCaprio's manager, Rick Yorn, issued a statement during Cannes: “Leo is extremely excited about this script and has decided to make it a priority.”

“To have the most romantic man in the movies play someone with no heart or soul will take people's breath away,” said Michael Paseornek, president of Lionsgate.

Christian happened to be at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of
Velvet Goldmine
. What should have been his time in the sun became a personal nightmare. Christian was beyond livid, ranting: “Losing this role is like having a pencil shoved through my brain.”

The day after the Lionsgate announcement, Christian said to a reporter: “I am doing everything I can to keep hold of the part. It was my project and I want to keep it that way. I am shocked that things like this can happen.”

To add insult to injury, Lionsgate reportedly offered Christian a consolation prize—a supporting role in DiCaprio's
American Psycho
.

Christian responded with, “I am taking legal advice. I'm not going to do any other role other than the lead.”

The Cannes Film Festival finished off on another bad note for Christian. Winona Ryder was also at Cannes, and she was the unfortunate target of Christian's temper after Ryder's friend and
Alien: Resurrection
costar Sigourney Weaver voted against
Velvet Goldmine
for the prestigious Palme d'Or. It would begin the deterioration of their “friendship.”

The DiCaprio versus Bale casting struggle suddenly became Hollywood versus Independent Film. It was DiCaprio/Stone versus Bale/Harron. At Cannes, attending actors voiced their outrage because independent film was supposed to be about filmmaking, not deal making.

Perhaps the only person happy about the DiCaprio development was David. He called me, sounding very resigned and tired. “Things happen for a reason. This is a good thing that my son isn't going to end up playing some monster.”

The publicity surrounding the casting did not look good for Lionsgate and it intensified when staunch feminist Gloria Steinem began lobbying DiCaprio not to make the film. Steinem wrote to DiCaprio that he would lose his fan base if he made the movie. She was also very concerned that DiCaprio's teen idol popularity might inspire copycat murderers who act out the murders depicted in the book. She drove home the point that his fans consisted of mostly starstruck young teenage girls following his
Titanic
success. Her efforts were successful and he bolted.

Once DiCaprio dropped out, opting to displace Ewan McGregor for the lead in
The Beach
, the project was handed back to Harron on the condition she could make the film for less than $10 million. She said: “I wanted the movie back. I never actually
felt like Leo could make that movie because it was such a crazy thing for him to do. The film was so controversial.”

She quickly set about assembling an amazing supporting cast on her limited budget, including Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Theroux, Jared Leto, Samantha Mathis, Guinevere Turner, and Josh Lucas. But Lionsgate had final casting approval and they still wanted a lead that had more name recognition and box office appeal.

Christian was in constant contact with Harron, anxiously trying to figure out ways to secure the part. He told a reporter: “I'm sure I harassed her at times because I would lose my temper and give her a call, not mad at her in the slightest but mad at the situation—
how dare they
! And Mary would say: ‘Now, Christian, I know, but I'm right in the middle of dinner. I've got friends around. Please, can we do this another day?'”

His tenacity clearly impressed Harron. She told the
Los Angeles Times
: “Christian's family felt that he was deluded.”

And that was true. David was very concerned that Christian was burning bridges chasing after this role. He asked him worriedly, “Is it really worth all this, Moosh? Think about it. You've made your point. Producers and casting agents have taken notice! Don't fight against DiCaprio.”

One night when the role was still undecided, Christian excitedly told me that he had heard that DiCaprio was at a particular club with his posse.

“Let's go get him!” he exclaimed.

“Get him?”

“Aren't you my bodyguard?” Christian laughed. At the time, he was calling me Oddjob, after the Asian bodyguard and manservant in the James Bond movie
Goldfinger
. “I want to talk to him!”

I talked Christian down, though the idea of the two of us facing off against DiCaprio's well-established posse was amusing . . . from a distance, of course.

But once again Lionsgate insisted on a different leading star and this time offered the part to Christian's
Velvet Goldmine
costar Ewan McGregor. Christian got wind of the offer, and Harron, desperate by this time to get the project off the ground, admitted to Christian that while she wanted him for the role, she would make the movie if McGregor agreed to play Bateman.

So Christian called McGregor and left him a voice mail begging him not to take the part. He pleaded with McGregor to understand the predicament he was in, since McGregor himself had just been screwed out of the lead role in
The Beach
.

Christian believed that McGregor would understand how he felt after they had both been passed over for DiCaprio and bigger box office appeal. McGregor did, and he passed on the part. But Lionsgate was still not convinced Christian should be the lead.

For some reason, Lionsgate decided to run an Internet poll, asking movie buffs who should be cast as the lead. An Internet poll? That was Christian's domain! We organized a Balehead campaign and he handily swept the poll, winning 93 percent of the vote—a victory covered by
Village Voice
and
Spin
before Lionsgate hastily took down the Web page.

Christian was amused at the poll results. He told a reporter: “Lionsgate did mention that, like ‘Well, well, my, oh my, that was very positive for you, wasn't it?' They were blindly playing into my hands, there.”

He recalled: “It is a controversial role but it's wonderful that Mary had offered it back to me. It got written up in
Variety
and I had people called up and say: ‘This is career suicide.' And I just thought: ‘Excellent, that's great!' I'm already getting calls from people asking: ‘You want to play Satan?' I was committed to go all the way, which is one of the reasons Mary cast me. A lot of actors wanted to do it with a nudge and a wink: ‘I'm a really great guy.' But I didn't want to play it that way.

“It's a brilliant book and a brilliant script. I've never met anyone
who had as much faith in me as Mary. It's obviously unlike any character I've done before and it's really nice to meet a director who doesn't just look at your past work and do versions of what you've already done. It was wonderful having her recognize that, yes, I can do the part and really fighting for me.”

Filming began in Toronto, Canada, in March 1999. To prepare for the role, Christian spoke to Harron on the phone before filming began, giving her his thoughts on how his version of Patrick Bateman should be portrayed.

They would have long conversations about, according to Christian: “How Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave.”

When people have asked Christian how he created the character of Bateman, he usually mentions that he had seen superstar Tom Cruise on late-night U.S. chat show
David Letterman
and his alien-like behavior had been his inspiration for Bateman.

There was another source for his inspiration. On his downtime, Christian channel-surfed television but was fascinated by an odd character he saw who was not quite human but obviously tried to imitate all the appearances of life.

“Who is this Mr. Data?” Christian asked me after being entranced by Brent Spiner's performance on an episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
. He knew I was a Trekker, so I happily explained the android character and how Mr. Data differed from the half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock.

“Mr. Data,” I said, “is someone who desperately wants to be human, while Vulcans are a race who have suppressed all emotions and are not interested in being human.”

Spiner's portrayal of Mr. Data interested Christian and as he began to test voices and accents for Patrick Bateman, there was a time when he sounded very much like Mr. Data attending an Ivy
League school. And to a Trekker, perhaps Patrick Bateman bears more than a passing similarity to Mr. Data's evil brother, Lore.

Around this time while Christian was preparing for the role of Bateman, I gave Christian a number of books about serial killers and man's inhumanity to man. He was eager to understand Bateman's mind-set and detachment. One book I gave him was
Invisible Darkness: The Strange Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homoka
by Stephen Williams. Bernardo and his wife, Homoka, were infamous Canadian serial killers. The other book was
The Rape of Nanking
by Iris Chang, which is a collection of eyewitness reports about the mass murders in Nanking by occupying Japanese troops during WWII. Christian's interest in this book would eventually lead him to the 2012 project
The Flowers of War
.

He might have found his inspiration for the interior of fiction's most twisted killer, but Christian still needed to get the exterior right. He would have several nude scenes, so he began the first of his many transformations for a movie role.

Before
American Psycho
, Christian had rarely worked out or visited a gym, telling a reporter: “Being English I tend to enjoy going down to the pub far more than going to the gym, so it was very unnatural for me. I just had to convince myself that I love it, which was the most difficult thing about playing this part.”

But hit the gym he did, spending six months while the casting battle raged on working out on his own, confident that DiCaprio would drop out and the part would be his. Then once he knew he had the part, Christian started working out with a trainer and taking his creatine supplements, ready to strip down and flex his muscles in the scene where he shares a threesome with a street hooker and a high-class call girl, while all the time checking himself out in the mirror.

The infamous “looking in the mirror” sex scene has been copied and aped by other actors since. In 2009, British actor Christian
Cooke pulled the same posture in a naked romp for the raunchy ITV series
Trinity
. And American actor Miles Fisher remarkably re-created the
American Psycho
sex scene for his music video cover of The Talking Heads' “This Must be the Place.” Fisher portrayed Tom Cruise in the 2008 comedy
Superhero Movie
.

Christian said: “The character is so vain and obsessed with his looks. While the psychology of the character was something that I could perform, you can't fake the physicality. Working out is incredibly boring. I swear it's true that the bigger your muscles get, the fewer brain cells you have. I found I had to stop thinking when I was in the gym because if I thought about it, I'd realise how ridiculous it was that I was pumping iron when I could've been out having a drink and a cigarette and enjoying some lunch.