American Psycho is one of the more unexpected movies to have earned a cult following ever since its release in 2000. Mary Harron’s brilliant adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ thriller novel features Christian Bale in the lead role of Patrick Bateman, an investment banker from New York who is also secretly a serial killer.
The movie’s main character Patrick Bateman is currently one of the internet’s top trending media characters that have been the subject of thousands of viral memes on the internet. This only goes on to show that Bale did an excellent job in portraying a character that would be remembered for ages, but it wasn’t all that easy (or safe!) to do so.
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How Christian Bale Dealt With Death Threats For Filming American Psycho
Mary Harron’s thrilling masterpiece is a satire and mockery of the yuppie culture of the 80s as well as the growing rise in consumerism at the time. The movie is still relevant today and lives through memes on the internet.
After its release on April 14, 2000, the movie was met with rave reviews from critics who were in awe at Bale’s performance as Patrick Bateman as well as the screenplay. Commercially, the film grossed $34 million compared to a $7 million budget- a huge success.
Christian Bale is a brilliant actor, we all know that. He’s also popularly known to have given his all in trying his best to portray a character to its full potential, and those efforts were pretty visible in American Psycho. Funnily enough, Leonardo Di Caprio was the first choice actor to play Bateman, having left the project due to creative differences. Earlier this year, Bale himself had admitted that most of his major roles were actually passed down by Leo DiCaprio, for which he owes him his career.
Di Caprio probably wouldn’t have regretted his decision, though. Bale recently revealed in a special feature for GQ that he had to deal with death threats while filming the movie-
“I remember somebody threatened me on the street, in case some people did object to the film getting made and all that. And I remember people were saying that they were gonna do me harm and stuff like that.”
“And I remember somebody warned me, must’ve been a friend of mine who was crazy early on the internet. They warned me and they called me up and they went “there’s some person and they know where you walk every single day and you go down this back alley and they say they’re gonna jump on you and they’re gonna rip your cerebral cortex out of your head so pleas don’t go down that alley.”
That’s quite the threat, so what did Bale do? He continues-
“Of course, I was like “I’m going to that alley, I wanna see what happens” and unfortunately nothing. I kept going up and down going “where are they?” but nothing ever happened!”
Those threats are a bit bone-chilling, and any normal person would’ve NOT gone into that alley but he did. Bale would later go on to give a brilliant reply to whoever threatened him to not star in the movie by… starring in the movie, and he did a damn good job!
Christian Bale On The Future Of His Acting Career
Christian Bale is currently 48 years old and is still making movies where he always seems to deliver in whatever role he’s given. But there comes a point in an actor’s life where they call it quits, and Bale is hinting towards ending his acting career once and for all.
During a recent interview with GQ, the Thor: Love and Thunder actor expressed his desire to call it a day-
I’ve always been bent on “When’s this gonna end? This has to end.” I like doing things that have nothing to do with film. And I find myself very happily not playing dress-up, not pretending to be somebody else for long lengths of time.”
He may decide to pull down the curtains once and for all one day, but let’s not forget that he said he would consider a return as Batman in a movie only if Christopher Nolan was to direct it during an interview with ComicBook.com.
So he still has one more movie left in him, but it seems like he won’t be showing himself out the door unless and until Nolan shows up just in time to direct a new Batman movie and cast Bale as Bruce Wayne, that would be heavenly.
Source: YouTube
