While the main character and serial killer, Patrick Bateman, is regarded as one of Christian Bale's best performances, he wasn't always slated to star in the film. Bale was director Mary Harron's first pick, but Titanic's Leonardo DiCaprio was cast in the role instead. That is until a feminist legend changed his mind.
Why did Leonardo DiCaprio not play Patrick Bateman?
The staple Hollywood classic, American Psycho, had the Titanic's heartthrob. However, as difficult as it might seem to envision any other actor besides Bale in the role of Patrick Bateman, DiCaprio left the project at the time due to creative differences with the makers.
Who was originally supposed to play Patrick Bateman?
Christian Bale: Patrick Bateman in 'American Psycho'
Johnny Depp was first tapped for the part, but he turned it down. Then, Leonardo DiCaprio was slated to play Bateman, but his management advised against it at the last minute.
At the time, Leonardo DiCaprio was a rising, fresh-faced talent widely considered to be the biggest movie star of the day. However, his clean-cut image would have been significantly tainted by the role of Patrick Bateman, and that could have led to a slump in his career in the years that followed.
How Did Tom Cruise Inspire Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman? Yes, Tom Cruise. The death-defying, cinema-saving icon himself. In a 2009 interview that Mary Harron gave to blackbookmag.com, she said that Bale once called her and said that he had a light bulb moment.
Leonardo DiCaprio & Lily Gladstone Interview - Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Who almost got the role of Patrick Bateman?
The casting process can be unpredictable, and Christian Bale's journey as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho had its twists and turns. Initially replaced when Leonardo DiCaprio was considered for the role, Bale eventually reclaimed the part and delivered a memorable performance as the iconic character.
This, combined with sex, violence, drugs, and other desires of the id, is how Bateman enacts his sociopathic violence in a superficial world. Bateman's episodes of schizophrenia also shows clear signs on how he copes with being an affluent person living in a superficial world, fashioned on consumerism.
The first time we see Paul Allen — and then for the remaining time he's in the movie — he mistakenly refers to Patrick Bateman as Marcus Halberstram, who Patrick tells us also works at P&P doing the same exact thing he does. They also dress similarly and go to the same barber.
Not everyone is like Bateman, but many people share the same empty feelings, and some feel the urge for violence. As such, American Psycho was a novel truly ahead of its time, and in retrospect, it's hard to imagine anyone other than Bale in the role.
In Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is apparently simply a psychopath. However, Bateman can be diagnosed with other mental illnesses such as Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, narcissism, and antisocial personality disorder.
He displays a high functioning form of Asperger's syndrome, yet there are still symptoms present in Bateman of which even the highest functioning people with Asperger's syndrome cannot rid themselves. One of the key symptoms in Asperger's syndrome is the need for strict routine.
His transgressive third novel, 'American Psycho', was the one that truly propelled him into the spotlight. Upon its release, it was widely condemned as being too graphically violent, outright misogynistic and got him labelled as a sadist.
It is left open to reader interpretation whether Bateman actually commits the crimes he describes, or whether he is merely hallucinating them; he is, therefore, an unreliable narrator. In the climax of the story, Bateman calls his lawyer and leaves a lengthy, detailed message confessing all of his crimes.
Why did people not want American Psycho to be made?
"American Psycho," Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation of the infamous Bret Easton Ellis novel, was already mired in controversy before it completed filming. Ellis' novel was so graphically violent, so loaded with misogyny, that many people thought the film version would be something close to a snuff film.
He usually hangs out with his coworkers at P&P but secretly hates most of them. Bateman kills men and women, the latter for sadistic sexual pleasure and the former because they anger him and make him feel inferior.
Patrick Bateman's crimes were not a dream, at least not all of them, instead, the real message that both Herron and Eston Ellis wanted to convey was that a man of such social status could literally get away with murder.
The fact that the world around him laughs or even acts complicit when the protagonist confesses his crimes makes this story one of the best critiques of the depravity of the business world. Because this is how Bret Easton Ellis meant his book to be understood: as a great metaphor.
Bateman often expresses doubts regarding his own sanity and he has periodic attacks of psychosis, during which he hallucinates. It is left open to reader interpretation whether Bateman actually commits the crimes he describes, or whether he is merely hallucinating them; he is, therefore, an unreliable narrator.
It's made clear there is no "top" to Bateman. There is only becoming more successful than the previous day. Therefore, Bateman would be a Sigma in that regard. In American Psycho's first act, Bateman makes it known to his fiancée that he wishes to conform to society as best he can, unlike his other roles.
'Feed Me A Stray Cat' Scene | American Psycho - YouTube. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) attempts to murder a cat after following the instructions of an ATM, which leads to more killings.
In American Psycho (2000) Willem Dafoe (Detective Kimball) acted each meeting with Bateman 3 ways in 3 different takes: 1. He knew Bateman was the killer, 2. He only suspected Bateman was the killer, 3. He did not suspect Bateman.
Bateman and his friends are also heavy drug users. Early in the novel, Bateman's cocaine use is largely social, but he later does more and more of the drug and his attitude towards it become increasingly aggressive. Bateman begins taking pills, too – downers like Halcion, Valium, and Xanax.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as multiple/split personality disorder). A person with this may have two, or many alternate personalities and be completely unaware of said “alters”, as we see with the character in Fight Club.
According to the Wiki article, the lawyer "mistakes him for another colleague". This is supposed to drive home the fact that although he is somewhat of a narcissist, he is unimportant to certain people around him.
They sought to make a period film grounded in the 1980s, sharing the setting with the novel. The pre-production period was tumultuous; Harron cast Bale to play Bateman, but because distributor Lionsgate Films secured a contract with Leonardo DiCaprio in the role, Harron was dismissed and replaced with Oliver Stone.
