‘American Psycho’ featured Christian Bale as an investment banker leading a secret life as a serial killer at night. Bale followed Method acting for the role, but Josh Lucas thought his acting was ‘bogus.’ He recently said in a Vanity Fair chat with Chloë Sevigny:
“I don’t know if you felt this way, but I actually truly remember thinking that Christian Bale was terrible.”
The actor explained:
“I remember the first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false — and I now realize that it was this just fucking brilliant choice that he was making. That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already, and that he was capable of having these crazy layers going on in what he was doing. I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but was exactly the opposite.”
Bale’s Acting Process Intimidated His Co-Stars
Chloë Sevigny played a secretary and Lucas one of Patrick Bateman’s friends/rivals in the film. Bale’s acting approach intimidated and ‘shut down’ Sevigny on set:
“I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego.”
She shared:
“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.”
Lucas And Sevigny Appreciated The Patrick Bateman Actor’s Style
Josh Lucas came to admire Christian Bale’s approach despite his usual dislike for working with Method actors:
“[Christian’s] not paying attention to fucking anything else but what he’s doing. I have nothing but admiration for that, because a lot of Method actors are actually kind of distracting with the fact that their process is more important than anything or anybody else.”
Meanwhile, Sevigny struggled to understand her co-star’s acting process partly because they were both child actors:
“It’s kind of surprising that Christian would be emotionally invested the way he is, because he was a child actor. It’s not like he studied in college and then became this Method-y, Brando-y kind of thing. He found this journey from being a child actor to then an adult actor that I think is a really interesting trajectory, and I’m curious about that.”
Bale’s performance in ‘American Psycho’ earned him several awards, including one from the London Critics Circle.
