There’s no question that Christian Bale is one of the top actors of this era of film. When he joins a movie, the producers know he’s a major audience draw and pay him accordingly. But earlier in his career — specifically, in the American Psycho days — that was decidedly not the case.
That isn’t to say that Bale was seen as untalented. Even when he was a fresh-faced young actor in movies like the 1987 war film Empire of the Sun and the 1992 musical Newsies, his abilities as a performer were obvious. But that critical praise wasn’t enough to get an oddball project like American Psycho off the ground.
