Can you talk to these people or something?
I'm not getting anywhere.
What are those?
Oh, well it's cranberry juice, green apple.
Really?
This is American Psycho, and it's still being watched today
for a reason.
Released in 2000, American Psycho
is based on the controversial novel of the same name
by Bret Easton Ellis.
A dive into the narcissism greed and sociopathy present in 1980s
yuppie culture told from the perspective of Patrick Bateman
in what would prove to be a breakout role for the then
up and coming actor Christian Bale.
It's a starkly naturalistic portrayal
of what is essentially a psychopath.
Bate was somehow able to seamlessly shift
his performance from a charming, relaxed, and moderately
self-obsessed stockbroker to a man
in the throes of a violent and murderous rage in mere seconds
all while filtering these extremely nuanced emotions
through a thin veil of narcissistic insanity.
I want to fit in.
So how was Bale able to breathe life
into a character this extreme and have him still
be at least relatively believable to the audience
watching all of the carnage unfold?
Back in '91, there was quite a bit of controversy
surrounding the release of this particular novel.
Simon and Schuster dropped the novel from its catalog
at the last minute due to critical reception eventually
landing in the hands of Vintage Publishing.
And, despite all of the commotion,
this reception did not hurt the book sales and the media
attention ignited a high-stakes bidding
war for the option rights.
The film adaptation of the novel also
had a bit of a rocky start, maybe
fittingly, due to the very same controversial subject matter.
For instance, despite being Director Mary Harron's
first choice, Christian Bale was not originally
attached to play Patrick Bateman in the film.
It was Leonardo DiCaprio, who was originally
attached in the role.
DiCaprio's casting and Harron's subsequent displeasure over it
led to the director being let go and the studio beginning
a courting of Oliver Stone to replace him.
At the time of American Psycho's pre-production,
Leonardo DiCaprio was looking for a role
to follow his performance in James Cameron's Titanic
and wanted to do something to ensure
that he wouldn't get pigeonholed into playing romantic leads.
Where it began to circulate that DiCaprio was attached
to the controversial project and, as rumor has it,
this allegedly prompted a conversation between DiCaprio
and journalist Gloria Steinem at a Yankees game
where she persuaded him to drop out
of the film due to the portrayal of violence against women.
But the majority of DiCaprio's fan base at the time,
being younger women after the Titanic role,
DiCaprio agreed with Steinem and decided
to drop out of the project.
So, just like that, Christian Bale
is back in, which also meant that the film's
original director would be back to helm once again.
But the big hurdle remained of becoming this character
for Christian Bale getting into that character, Patrick
Bateman, was not an easy process either.
And, if you know anything about Christian Bale, some of this
is going to come across as a bit obvious.
When some actors get into shape for a role,
it's to appear more physically intimidating on screen.
With a character like Bateman, [? Britain ?]
has an indictment of the '80s version
of what a perfect man should look
like, his physical appearance was meant to be a walking
satire of that culture.
And to accurately portray this satire,
Bale needed to adhere to a strict diet and workout regimen
to maintain Bateman's meticulously crafted physique.
Now, typically you hire a trainer
and you do what anybody else does.
But Patrick Bateman was written as having
a very specific workout routine in the film
complete with an ice mask, jumping rope,
and an absolutely absurd amount of crunches.
Well, that's exactly the workout regimen
that Christian Bale stuck to for the duration of the film's
production.
He is what's known as a Method Actor.
Method acting is an attempt to become the character
that you are playing on screen or on stage
where the cameras are or not rolling
or where there's butts in seats or not in seats.
As first conceptualized in the early 20th century
by Russian theater practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski.
Stanislavski's system is based entirely
around an actor finding ways to experience
parallel emotions to that of the characters they are portraying.
Through these experiences, in theory, and actor
can then exist in truth under the imaginary circumstances
presented in their film or play.
Since then many instructors have extrapolated
on Stanislavski system.
Lee Strasberg added more psychological elements
of the system.
Stella Adler's technique focuses more
on the sociological elements of performance.
And Sanford Meisner's approach is
rooted in behavioral elements.
All of them direct the performer toward the philosophy
that acting is the reality of doing,
which is the reasoning why someone like Christian Bale
might stick to the exact workout regimen
of his fictional character, Patrick Bateman.
Christian Bale wants to be able to experience
the self-obsessed, compulsive behavior that comes
with being Patrick Bateman.
During Bateman's confession in the film,
naturally, Christian Bale couldn't
have shot someone and hid from the police
to generate the experience.
I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face.
His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen.
He did, however, utilize caffeine to stimulate his heart
rate into one more akin to someone experiencing
a heightened sense of distress by drinking a ton of espresso
before the shoot.
That kind of behavior is considered Method.
I had to kill a lot of people.
Now, I want to be really clear about something.
There are a lot of people who believe in this industry
that Method Acting is absurd.
Actually makes things more difficult,
doesn't lead, most of the time, to better performances,
and can sometimes make film sets intolerable.
Even making other people uncomfortable to the point
where it hinders their performances.
For instance, it's widely known that Jim Carrey was
an absolute nightmare on the set of Man On The Moon.
He delayed shoots, refused to show up,
relentlessly taunted Jerry Lawler,
and would get into screaming matches with the director.
Actions like these can create that needless tension on set
and become more of an obstacle than a piece
of productive performance.
But in American Psycho, it seems to have been
an example of it paying off.
His performance is full of subtlety case in point.
At around the 14-minute mark of the film,
Patrick Bateman is at the dry cleaners
trying to get the blood out of his sheets
where he runs into a coworker who delays him.
As he's leaving, he drops his facade in a split second,
and you see his face completely change
as he walks out the door.
These moments show an acute understanding of his character.
But, more importantly, an organic understanding
of how his character would react.
Within this toolset observation becomes
another tool that actors can keep in their belts
when creating this character.
Oftentimes actors can hone in on small details
that they observe in daily life and magnify them when
bringing them into their work.
In the case of American Psycho, Christian Bale
studied an interview that David Letterman
conducted with Tom Cruise.
Bale said that Tom Cruise's overt friendliness
and enthusiasm paired with having
almost nothing behind his eyes was an energy that
really resonated with him.
And by tapping into that moment, that conversation,
he was able to do a lot more with his character.
A character that Christian Bale refused
to drop even after the cameras stopped rolling on set.
And when this all synergizes properly,
it becomes remarkable, even for the people around him.
Multiple cast and crew members have
said that Bale could make himself
sweat on command during the fabled business card scene.
And it wasn't a fluke either.
Christian Bale was able to burst into perspiration
at the exact time during every single take every single time.
This seemingly bionic ability to control an involuntary bodily
function was a direct reaction to how deeply
Bale had immersed himself in the character and the moment
that Patrick Bateman found himself in.
Cast and crew members would say it
would seem that he was having a serious physical reaction
every time the business card was trumped in the scene.
And none of this works without smart actoral decision-making
skills.
That's all acting is, right?
Second to second decision-making,
creating a character on the fly, like in the impromptu dancing,
during the scene in which Bateman murders Paul
Allen to Huey Lewis the News.
All of that being completely improvised on the spot
by Christian Bale.
And, ironically, one of the most iconic
scenes in the entire film.
The moonwalking, the shoulder dips,
all of this delightfully macabre,
whimsy, Bale decides to bring to the scene heightening
the terror all improv, all in the moment.
Now while this all might sound like an advertisement
or infomercial for Method Acting, it's not.
It is worth pointing out that American Psycho is not
the classic it is today.
It's not even talked about today without Christian Bale's
performance.
And it's worth pointing out that how
he got there was, well, through Method.
But that's not really the point.
You could write the same piece about a litany
of Christian Bale's roles.
Instead, what I think is so interesting about Bale,
American Psycho, Method Acting is, despite whether or not
you agree with the technique, despite whether or not
it works, and it clearly does at times,
and doesn't in others, one thing that
is true objectively is that it requires a level of commitment
to your craft, to your art, and to the moment that is not
just admirable, but sometimes seemingly
impossible to achieve.
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