10 Actors Most Comfortable Playing The Grotesque

Christian Bale has been in some of the greatest movies of the past twenty years. Well known for putting his all into his roles, this method actor will stop at nothing to create the best version of his character for the screen.

With a usually slim authentic frame, Bale packed on a ton of muscle for his debut as Batman in 2004. Shortly after production for Christopher Nolan’s legendary Dark Knight trilogy, Bale began work for the independent film, The Machinist.

Playing main character, Trevor Reznik, who was an extreme insomniac and suffering severe mental health issues as a result, Bale lost all of the mass he had built for the Batman role and continued to lose even more weight to show the character’s descent into madness.

Not only that, but after becoming muscular once again for the second part of the Batman trilogy, Bale went on to lose a similar amount of weight to play Dicky Eklund, brother of Mark Wahlberg’s Micky Ward, in The Fighter. At the time of recording, Bale weighed around 122 pounds (down over 60 pounds for his healthy weight of 185).

To counter the expectation he had set in previous movies, Bale decided to go in the opposite direction for American Hustle and Vice. Playing much larger, but equally gross characters, the method actor tipped the scales at 230 pounds for both parts respectively.