Christian Bale Almost Lost 'American Psycho' Role To Leonardo DiCaprio

“American Psycho” is one of the first films that put Christian Bale into the limelight and took his popularity as an actor to a whole new level. The film has managed to remain a cult-classic even after 20 years of its release. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Bale and some other members of the film are now opening up about the specif details about the movie that never came out earlier.

According to a report, Mary Harron, the director of the film, once revealed that Bale was really close to losing out on the role of Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho” to Leonardo DiCaprio since Lionsgate was planning to give $20 million to DiCaprio just so he could star as the main lead in the movie.

In an interview with MovieMaker, Harron further stated that DiCaprio is a wonderful actor but he would not have looked good playing a mad-man just shortly after doing a movie like “Titanic” wherein he portrayed the character of Jack and most of his fans were 14- or 15-year-old girls. She noted that it would have been “intolerable” for them to see DiCaprio like that after “Titanic.”

“I think my instinct was right on this, [DiCaprio] carried enormous baggage because he had just come off ‘Titanic’ and I thought you take someone who has a worldwide fanbase of 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls and cast him as Patrick Bateman. It will be intolerable and everyone will be terrified,” Harron said.

Bale went on to play the role of Patrick Bateman in the movie who was an investment banker by the day but a serial killer by night who murdered women for his entertainment purposes.

After all the rumors of the studio moving forward with the “Wolf Of Wall Street” star and hiring a new director, Oliver Stone, to helm the movie, Harron had lost all hope that she would be able to make the project, but Bale was quite adamant that he would do everything to make the movie possible.

Recalling that particular moment, the “Ford v Ferarri” star explained that he kept on calling her to talk about certain scenes and would make it clear that he is going to carry on with his preparations for the role. Harron did not believe that the esteemed star immersed himself into the role even though he told him that DiCaprio was doing the movie now. Nevertheless, Bale never listened to her and kept on prepping for the movie.

“I would call her to talk about scenes, and she would be on a family vacation and she would say, ‘Christian, please, I am trying to have my dinner. There’s other people making the movie now.’ And I would say, ‘Mary, just stop being so negative. We are going to do this,” Bale said.

Released in 2000, the movie had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and received generally positive reviews from the critics as well as the audiences. But a certain section of society raised some concerns over the violent nature of the film.

The movie received special recognition from the National Board Of Review (NBR) on its annual list and Bale was nominated in the Best Actor category at the Online Film Critics Society Awards. The film also starred Reese Witherspoon, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe and Josh Lucas in pivotal roles.