Christian Bale’s 'American Psycho' Co-Star Recalls ‘Challenging’ Shoot With ‘Intimidating’ Actor

Chlo? Sevigny recently sat down with her American Psycho co-star Josh Lucas for an interview with Vanity Fair. During the chat, Sevigny recalled her “challenging dynamic” with the “intimidating” Christian Bale, who starred as stockbroker-cum-serial killer Patrick Bateman in the film.

Bale has long been known for his method-acting style, which sees him adopt his character’s mannerisms and distinct accent both on and off set for the duration of a given production.

In Mary Harron’s darkly comic, restrained adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ sickening novel, Sevigny plays Bale’s retiring secretary. The two share several extended scenes in the film, despite Sevigny being one of the few female characters to survive the picture.

Speaking to VF, she recalled being “really intimidated” by Bale. “I was trying to respect his process, which I found challenging because I’m very gregarious and silly and goofy, unbeknownst to the general public,” she said.

Ultimately, she had to distance herself from her co-star. “When people take themselves so seriously, I kind of shut down, even though I take my work very seriously and I love acting and whatnot,” she explained.

Sevigny continued: “I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego. 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?’…The whole method thing, I was like, ‘What even is this approach?’ It was very intimidating.”

Lucas, who plays one of Bateman’s simpering co-workers, agreed that he found Bale’s approach confounding. “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 f--king brilliant choice that he was making,” Lucas said.

Lucas re-teamed with Bale for the 2019 biopic Ford v Ferrari, at which time he got candid about his feelings towards the Dark Knight star.

“He informed me that all of the other actors thought that I was the worst actor they’d ever seen,” Bale told Movie Maker of Lucas. “He was telling me they kept looking at me and talking about me, saying, ‘Why did Mary fight for this guy? He’s terrible.’ And it wasn’t until he saw the film that he changed his mind. And I was in the dark completely about that critique.”

But Lucas told VF that, 24 years after American Psycho’s release, he has “nothing but admiration” for his co-star. Bale’s approach is different from “a lot of method actors” who are “distracting with the fact that their process is more important than anything or anybody else,” Lucas explained.

“That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already," Lucas enthused, "and 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 it was exactly the opposite.”