Understandably, Christian Bale didnt find it easy to get inside the head of the complete and utter psychopath Patrick Bateman. In an interview with Black Book Magazine, Harron recalls multiple phone calls where she and Bale tried to get to the crux of the character prior to filming. We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, Harron explains in the interview, the idea being that Bateman was constantly watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. But still, it seems that Bale didnt quite have his performance fully prepared. A eureka moment came when Bale saw Tom Cruise being interviewed on David Lettermans late night talk show. Harron recalls that Bale was really taken with this energy that Cruise was emitting, this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes. Added to this, Bale also used Nic Cages unhinged turn from the 1988 film Vampires Kiss where Cage played mentally ill literary agent Peter Loew - to inform his psychopathic performance. Bateman is essentially multiple manic Hollywood personas merged together, then, which makes for mesmerising results.
