4. He Only Slept Two Hours A Night While Making The Machinist
Massive fluctuations in body weight have become regular occurrences for Christian Bale over the years, and few working actors can match the levels of dedication and commitment he brings to each role. Nevertheless, one film in particular demonstrated the extremes he would go to, albeit unintentionally. Even now it is alarming to see how emaciated Bale became for his role as Trevor Reznik in 2004 film The Machinist, dropping over 60 pounds to achieve the skeletal 121-pound frame seen in the film. Not that it was ever his plan to weigh so little there were several unforeseen delays before production began, so Bale had no choice but to maintain his diet of salads, apples, chewing gum, cigarettes and non-fat lattes for months longer than anticipated. It wasnt all bad though: Bale has since revealed that he felt razor-sharp mentally, requiring just two hours sleep a night and reading for eight hours at a time. Apparently his family were also pleased with his docile demeanour, although his social life disappeared entirely:
In the end, I had to stop going out. I realised that wasnt going to work. Id do a bit of eating hardly anything and losing 51 pounds and then Id put on seven pounds bingeing one night because Id have a couple of drinks. So I decided no more social life, no more friends, no more dinners, no more drinks.
I watch movies and I watch sport. I also watch movies about sport, and if there were a sport about movies I'd watch that too. The internet was the closest thing I could find.
