That year, Christian’s dad had begun dating Charlotte Cornwell, a British acting coach living in L.A. David had need of comforting company. He was depressed and constantly in a state of worry about the family finances and his immigration status. He had long since overstayed his visitor’s visa by over eight years.
Christian was not particularly fond of Charlotte, especially since the premiere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Charlotte, trying to be helpful, offered Christian acting lessons. “A good English boy should know his Shakespeare,” she suggested. I almost burst out laughing at Christian’s openmouthed shock at being offered lessons. I quickly steered him to the bar before he could reply.
David was, as always, very upset with Christian’s agent. These were desperate times and he blamed her for never following up the promise of Christian’s career after 1994’s Little Women. And now, because of her (or so it seemed to David) the family was drowning in debt.
David, the self-proclaimed “financial advisor” had been fighting and losing a two-front war. To the American Internal Revenue Service (IRS), David told tax collectors that Christian was a British citizen and therefore not required to pay American taxes. To Britain’s Inland Revenue, David told those tax collectors that Christian was an American resident and therefore not required to pay U.K. taxes. The result—on February 6, 1998, the IRS filed a lien for the amount of $144,942 against Christian.
It seemed that all of David’s plans were backfiring. Just before the lien showed up, David had bought a red 1974 Triumph TR6 for Christian’s birthday (1974 was significant as it was Christian’s birth year). But a few months later, neither Christian nor David could afford the car, so they suggested that I buy the car with the hope of holding onto it until Christian was financially able to take it back. All the jokes about British cars are true. I had to sell the car a few months later as it couldn’t drive for more than ten miles at a time without breaking down.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be the last time Christian could take on a role without an eye on the paycheck. Christian reluctantly agreed to do a TV movie, Mary, Mother of Jesus— the Easter story told from Mary’s point of view. It was produced by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Maria Shriver, ex-wife of action movie superstar and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was thrilled to see the photos of Christian as Jesus. “Oooh! Sexy Jesus!” she said. Christian’s costar would be Swedish actress Pernilla August, who’s better known for her role as Schmi Skywalker, Anakin’s mom from the Star Wars movies.
David was also thrilled. He had been making the rounds in Los Angeles, attending Democratic Party fund-raisers, eager to make connections and network. What better than a connection with the Kennedy family?
This was Christian’s official headshot that I took of him outside an office building in El Segundo in 2002. Christian was insistent that we not use an outside photographer!
However, when Christian declined Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s invitation to attend the premiere of Mary, Mother of Jesus at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., David was furious. How could Christian turn his nose up at America’s legendary First Family, the Kennedys?
No amount of David’s begging could change Christian’s mind. He would not go to the Kennedy Center. When Mary, Mother of Jesus aired on TV, both David and Mojo looked very sad when they saw Christian as Jesus being beaten and crucified. In England, Jenny told me that she, too, had wept during those scenes.
Christian’s paycheck from the production had saved the day, and Christian would look on his performance as Jesus with great amusement in contrast to what he would later be known for. That year, Christian’s Christmas card featured him as Jesus waving hello.
[9]
Before Batman,
There Was Bateman
“I had people called up and say: ‘This is career suicide,’ and I just thought: ‘Excellent, that’s great!’ I was quite turned on by that—by other people thinking it was going to ruin my career.”
—Christian Bale, 1999
“I wasn’t afraid of being a despicable character from beginning to end. It’s my trajectory to become possibly the most hated actor of the year.”
—Christian Bale, 2000
In 1999 Christian become the most hated actor on the planet when he took on the role of sadistic serial killer Patrick Bateman. It was a huge career leap for the young actor from Wales that many people thought was career suicide. Remember, his role before this one was Jesus. So it was obviously a calculated risk when he decided to pursue the controversial leading role in American Psycho, based on the best-selling novel by Brett Easton Ellis.
The book was an instant hit when it was published in 1991, landing on all the best-seller lists despite its content. The book was originally slated to be published by Simon & Schuster, who had published Ellis’s first two novels, Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. But the company caved in to protests from the National Organization of Women, led by the feminist Tammy Bruce, and threats of a boycott. So two months before American Psycho was due to be published, Simon & Schuster pulled out, something practically unheard of in the publishing world.
Ellis still pocketed the $300,000 advance for the manuscript although he was left shocked by the company’s reaction and the consequent arguments over censorship and decency. The book was quickly becoming a cause célèbre. But in early 1991 Vintage Books, a subsidiary of Random House then, quickly stepped in and purchased the rights to the novel, despite all the controversy and protests surrounding it.
After the book was published, Ellis received numerous death threats and hate mail. And it was easy to see why.
The book featured graphic accounts of main character Patrick Bateman’s numerous murders, including vivid descriptions of sexual abuse and torture. Many of the murders themselves involved various forms of mutilation including genital mutilation. Ellis wrote graphically of yuppie Bateman examining the internal organs of some of his victims after murdering them. And one particularly horrific scene involved a naked woman, a pipe, some cheese, and a rat.
But none of the material or the public outrage that surrounded the book seemed to bother Hollywood. Plans for a movie went full steam ahead. The hunt was on for a star and a script.
Johnny Depp was the first actor formally attached to the project in the mid ‘90s, first with Stuart Gordon in talks to direct and then with David Cronenberg officially attached. The project was perfect for Cronenberg who had a reputation for shocking his audiences and was known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Barron of Blood. He had gained popularity with the head-exploding telepathy-based Scanners before releasing Dead Ringers, in which Jeremy Irons played twin gynaecologists who fall for the same woman, and then he did The Fly.
Eventually, Depp passed but Cronenberg remained involved, bringing on Brad Pitt, with Ellis writing the script himself. Pitt was hot off the success of his breakout roles in Thelma and Louise and A River Runs Through It, but he soon dropped out in favor of playing a cop chasing a serial killer in Se7en and the part of Jeffrey Goines in Twelve Monkeys, which earned him an Oscar nomination.
Edward Norton also passed on the role of Patrick Bateman. By this time, Cronenberg had lost interest, so producer Ed Pressman offered directing duties to Mary Harron. She signed to do the film on the condition that she could write her own screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Ellis’s script was jettisoned because it ended with a big musical number at the Statue of Liberty! While other approaches to the book were more like slasher flicks, Harron and Turner’s script was a satiric, feminist take on the book and the narcissistic ‘80s.
Before American Psycho, the Canadian-born, Oxford-educated Harron was probably best known for her 1996 indie film, I Shot Andy Warhol, which starred Lili Taylor and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. I Shot Andy Warhol was about the life of radical feminist Valerie Solanas, who wrote the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto. That film was produced by long-time Todd Haynes collaborator Christine Vachon, who had just finished p
roducing Velvet Goldmine.
Christian had heard about American Psycho and was desperate to play Bateman, an American Wall Street broker by day, murderer by night. He met with Harron and convinced her that he was passionate and 100 percent committed to the role. He had been working out on his own to bulk up his body, and he had developed the perfect yuppie American accent.
David did not want his son to even consider the part. “Career suicide” was the key phrase associated with this script, which was based on a book that most people considered unfilmable. David, who was constantly fighting Christian’s agent, was now taking her advice that American Psycho could ruin Christian’s career with a new typecast—that of serial killer/villain. David towed the traditional Hollywood line that a movie star needed to be likeable. Henry Fonda? Tom Hanks? Bruce Willis? Tom Cruise of the 1990s? Likeable. Loveable.
When David learned about Mary Harron’s previous work, particularly the SCUM Manifesto, he was very suspicious. He told me: “This Mary Harron will make a fool of my son! He’s too innocent to understand that women are the root of all evil. Don’t believe me? Look it up in the Bible!”
But Christian was fixated. He loved the dark humor in the script. And while Christian himself was no feminist, he liked Harron’s sense of humor and how Harron’s script made fun of wealthy, materialistic American stockbrokers of the 1980s. Most importantly, this would be a showy, very American role where Christian could once and for all shed any image of being “just another British actor.”
“I don’t want to be a movie star,” Christian would tell me more than once. “I want to be an actor. All this talk of career suicide . . . I rather like that I’m running contrary to what everyone expects.”
I was very proud of Christian’s position. Sure, he was running against his father’s advice, but after reading the American Psycho script, with its violence and sex, I could see that Christian would shatter any British actor stereotyping. Worst-case scenario, we decided, the film would be another little-seen indie flick, with minimal negative impact to Christian’s career prospects. Best-case scenario, he’d break from the pack of other Young Hollywood men.
Harron told Salon why she considered Christian. “When I met with Christian and I watched his face, it wasn’t a difficult decision. He reminded me of Lili Taylor in the sense that there was a lot below the surface. He had a sense of mystery and depth in his face. And I hadn’t sensed that with anyone else.”
Christian and American Psycho director, Mary Harron, chilling in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival.
Christian was still not confident the part was his, so he made his move on Harron when he attended the Toronto Film Festival in August 1997.
As luck would have it, while at the festival promoting well-received screenings of Metroland with Emily Watson, Christian met Harron’s younger sister Kelly, an actress and producer. Knowing who she was, Christian struck up a conversation with her at The Courthouse, a club in downtown Toronto.
He completely charmed Kelly into bed that night and also finally won over Mary Harron, and she offered him the part. Kelly Harron had a bit part in American Psycho as a bartender and began dating Christian during the shoot, although the relationship soon fizzled shortly after filming ended.
Unfortunately, things started to unravel when Harron took the project to Lionsgate. Christian was very confident that Lionsgate would fund the project. Lionsgate had picked up North American distribution rights for Metroland and All the Little Animals, and it seemed that they were interested in investing in Christian’s career. However, by April 1998, without Harron or Christian’s knowledge, Lionsgate offered the part to DiCaprio, who at that point was the most bankable star in the world thanks to the monstrous success of Titanic. The movie company had also agreed to pay DiCaprio $20 million for the part—more than triple the small film’s original $6 million budget. And to top it off, they wanted Oliver Stone to direct.
So when Lionsgate issued a press release during the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and announced to the world that DiCaprio and not Christian would be starring in American Psycho, Harron threatened to resign in protest. She insisted: “Leonardo wasn’t remotely right for the part. There’s something boyish about him. He’s not credible as one of these tough Wall Street guys. Besides, he brought way too much baggage with him. I did not want to deal with someone who had a thirteen-year-old fan base. They shouldn’t see the movie. It could’ve got us into a lot of trouble.”
DiCaprio’s manager, Rick Yorn, issued a statement during Cannes: “Leo is extremely excited about this script and has decided to make it a priority.”
“To have the most romantic man in the movies play someone with no heart or soul will take people’s breath away,” said Michael Paseornek, president of Lionsgate.
Christian happened to be at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of Velvet Goldmine. What should have been his time in the sun became a personal nightmare. Christian was beyond livid, ranting: “Losing this role is like having a pencil shoved through my brain.”
The day after the Lionsgate announcement, Christian said to a reporter: “I am doing everything I can to keep hold of the part. It was my project and I want to keep it that way. I am shocked that things like this can happen.”
To add insult to injury, Lionsgate reportedly offered Christian a consolation prize—a supporting role in DiCaprio’s American Psycho.
Christian responded with, “I am taking legal advice. I’m not going to do any other role other than the lead.”
The Cannes Film Festival finished off on another bad note for Christian. Winona Ryder was also at Cannes, and she was the unfortunate target of Christian’s temper after Ryder’s friend and Alien: Resurrection costar Sigourney Weaver voted against Velvet Goldmine for the prestigious Palme d’Or. It would begin the deterioration of their “friendship.”
The DiCaprio versus Bale casting struggle suddenly became Hollywood versus Independent Film. It was DiCaprio/Stone versus Bale/Harron. At Cannes, attending actors voiced their outrage because independent film was supposed to be about filmmaking, not deal making.
Perhaps the only person happy about the DiCaprio development was David. He called me, sounding very resigned and tired. “Things happen for a reason. This is a good thing that my son isn’t going to end up playing some monster.”
The publicity surrounding the casting did not look good for Lionsgate and it intensified when staunch feminist Gloria Steinem began lobbying DiCaprio not to make the film. Steinem wrote to DiCaprio that he would lose his fan base if he made the movie. She was also very concerned that DiCaprio’s teen idol popularity might inspire copycat murderers who act out the murders depicted in the book. She drove home the point that his fans consisted of mostly starstruck young teenage girls following his Titanic success. Her efforts were successful and he bolted.
Once DiCaprio dropped out, opting to displace Ewan McGregor for the lead in The Beach, the project was handed back to Harron on the condition she could make the film for less than $10 million. She said: “I wanted the movie back. I never actually felt like Leo could make that movie because it was such a crazy thing for him to do. The film was so controversial.”
She quickly set about assembling an amazing supporting cast on her limited budget, including Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Theroux, Jared Leto, Samantha Mathis, Guinevere Turner, and Josh Lucas. But Lionsgate had final casting approval and they still wanted a lead that had more name recognition and box office appeal.
Christian was in constant contact with Harron, anxiously trying to figure out ways to secure the part. He told a reporter: “I’m sure I harassed her at times because I would lose my temper and give her a call, not mad at her in the slightest but mad at the situation—how dare they! And Mary would say: ‘Now, Christian, I know, but I’m right in the middle of dinner. I’ve got friends around. Please, can we do this another day?’”
His tenacity clearly impressed Harron. She told the Los Angeles Times: “Chris
tian’s family felt that he was deluded.”
And that was true. David was very concerned that Christian was burning bridges chasing after this role. He asked him worriedly, “Is it really worth all this, Moosh? Think about it. You’ve made your point. Producers and casting agents have taken notice! Don’t fight against DiCaprio.”
One night when the role was still undecided, Christian excitedly told me that he had heard that DiCaprio was at a particular club with his posse.
“Let’s go get him!” he exclaimed.
“Get him?”
“Aren’t you my bodyguard?” Christian laughed. At the time, he was calling me Oddjob, after the Asian bodyguard and manservant in the James Bond movie Goldfinger. “I want to talk to him!”
I talked Christian down, though the idea of the two of us facing off against DiCaprio’s well-established posse was amusing . . . from a distance, of course.
But once again Lionsgate insisted on a different leading star and this time offered the part to Christian’s Velvet Goldmine costar Ewan McGregor. Christian got wind of the offer, and Harron, desperate by this time to get the project off the ground, admitted to Christian that while she wanted him for the role, she would make the movie if McGregor agreed to play Bateman.
So Christian called McGregor and left him a voice mail begging him not to take the part. He pleaded with McGregor to understand the predicament he was in, since McGregor himself had just been screwed out of the lead role in The Beach.
Christian believed that McGregor would understand how he felt after they had both been passed over for DiCaprio and bigger box office appeal. McGregor did, and he passed on the part. But Lionsgate was still not convinced Christian should be the lead.
Christian Bale Page 15
