With a career that spans 41 years and still going strong, Christian Bale has built himself a prolific career. Working on some of the best projects that have left a lasting impression in the minds of the viewers as well as at the box office. He is one of the few names who can effortlessly switch to different characters, and he not only embodies the role but also undergoes physical changes to give a surreal experience to his film’s audience.
One of his most impressive physical transformations was in The Machinist as he had lost 63lbs, a third of his bodyweight. The transformation was on an extreme scale. Although Christian Bale is immensely dedicated to embodying his role, turns out his mother had come up with his diet to undergo the physical transformation and she was more excited than the actor himself.
Christian Bale’s Mother Suggested Her Son The Outrageous Diet For The Machinist
The Machinist narrates the story of Trevor Reznik, portrayed by Christian Bale, he is a machinist plagued by severe hallucinations and insomnia because of a mysterious accident. As the story continued the character started to lose his sanity and descended into madness. The story was interesting but it was Christian Bale’s outstanding performance and insane transformation that made him the talk of the town.
The Dark Knight actor changed his diet, and he lost 63lbs, as his diet consisted of a can of tuna, an apple, and plenty of whiskey with cigarettes. During a talk with GQ, Bale shared that during the filming in London, his mother came to live with him, and she came up with his diet for the film, suggesting he follow a rock star’s diet.
“‘Listen, why don’t you just try to do what rock stars did back then. They weren’t up running on an orange at 6 am! Their diet was s*x, drugs, and rock’n’roll!’ What a diet for a mother to prescribe, right?”
The actor was then asked if he followed his mother’s words dedicately or if he experimented with something on his own. Bale did not give a direct answer as he only mentioned that it was a “fun movie to be involved in.” Sadly, his efforts in the film did not get the results he wanted as the film managed to accumulate only $8.6 million at the box office.
Christian Bale Did A Dangerous Action Scene With Perfection
The American Psycho actor has proved that he can be limited by film genres, as he proved his haters wrong by portraying the role of Bruce Wayne/ Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. He had numerous iconic scenes that cemented him as one of the greatest actors ever to portray the character.
While Christian Bale was perfect in the action sequences of the film, one scene in the film turned out to pose a massive challenge to him. In a separate interview with GQ, the Vice actor shared that his stunt coordinator mentioned that he must be immensely careful while doing the stunt as failure to portray the stunt could lead to fatal injuries.
“I’m standing next to the stunt coordinator. Then, in all seriousness, he looks down and he goes, “All right, mate. Just do it right, because I had a friend who he did this and he broke almost every f**king bone in his body. And he’s a trained stuntman. But all right, cheers!” He patted me on the back and walked off. Then they went, “Action!”
In spite of the heavy pressure, the actor completed the scene flawlessly without having any life-threatening injuries.
The Machinist can be streamed on Paramount+.
