“I don’t know it”: American Psycho Author Made a Startling Revelation About Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman That Completely Changes the Movie

The novelty of Christian Bale’s performance as the murderous and psychopathic Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is his inherent lust for murder. The cruel intentions that he keeps at bay despite the absolute façade of normality of his mask make his role even more seductive to the audience. However, the film was not the original piece of art from where the idea of Bateman was born.

Originating from Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel Psycho featuring Norman Bates and adapted into a film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, Bret Easton Ellis’ novel is not a far throw from the mid-20th century author’s work. Ellis’ American Psycho is a more capitalist take on the classical psychopath against the backdrop of a modern world.

Bret Easton Ellis Clears an American Psycho Misconception

In a world guided by myths and misconceptions, it is not too difficult to believe if a couple of them slip into mainstream pop culture with time. Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho is a fruit fallen from the same tree. Much to Ellis’ chagrin, the adaptation of his novel took on a different meaning to the filmmaker. The reason, as he succinctly defined it, lay at the core of his work.

In an appearance at the podcast WTF With Marc Maron, Ellis revealed:

“How are they going to do this with this book? Why are they going to do this with this book? I mean the book was conceived as a piece of…as a novel. It was conceived as a novel. It wasn’t conceived as a script, it wasn’t conceived as a movie, it was a novel thing.

It was 400 pages in the mind of this guy and he’s a completely unreliable narrator. You don’t know if some of these things happen or not. You don’t even know if the murders happen or not. Which to me is interesting. To me it’s much more interesting not to know than to definitely know.”

After being asked to clarify his stance even further, Ellis replied to host Marc Maron:

“I don’t know it. No. I don’t know it. But, so, what the movie is going to do, regardless, is going to answer it. He’s going to have done them because we’re watching it happen.”

In a different interview with Shortlist, Ellis also commented on his character’s true intentions in the novel, saying: “Regarding the murders, I was always on the fence about whether they were fantasy or real. I don’t know and I prefer it that way.”

Although the film makes more than clear that the murders were real enough, it is the gruesome and sadistic simplicity of their execution that makes Christian Bale‘s character in American Psycho so terrifying.

Christian Bale Pulls Off an Enigmatic, Psychopathic Role

One of the rare performers in Hollywood – of the old era and the new – Christian Bale is an actor of great caliber and talent. A star of his scale has been known to go extinct in recent times and as films like Thor: Love and Thunder take over the moviemaking business, Bale’s talent gets misused and underutilized at an almost illegal level.

Rising to fame at a young age in Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film, Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale made his mark in Hollywood with a heart-wrenching performance. However, his later roles in his 21st-century films solidified his status as a generational talent. From Mary Harron’s American Psycho in 2000 to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Bale turned everything he touched into box office gold.

It is an actor of such inherent talent and ingrained instincts who can deliver a magnificent role as the sadistic, amoral, transgressive, and murderous psychopath all the while making the character enigmatic, charming, and endearing to the audience. As such, American Psycho remains one of the better (if not the best) roles of his lifetime and one that has catapulted his career into the spotlight.

American Psycho is available for streaming on Peacock and Prime Video.