Chlo? Sevigny Reveals the Curious Reason Why Co-Starring With Christian Bale Was So 'Intimidating'
While it’s often female stars who get the reputation of being “divas” in Hollywood, lots of celebrities have proved they’ve got some quirks over the years. Christian Bale, for example, is reportedly a big fan of Method acting, a choice that has even rubbed some co-stars the wrong way.
In a recent interview for Vanity Fair, Bale’s American Psycho co-stars Chlo? Sevigny and Josh Lucas talked about working with the somewhat eccentric actor.
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“I don’t know if you felt this way, but I actually truly remember thinking that Christian Bale was terrible,” Lucas said of Bale. “I remember the first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false—and I now realize that it was this just f— brilliant choice that he was making.”
“That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already, and that he was capable of having these crazy layers going on in what he was doing,” Lucas admired of the Oscar winner. “I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but was exactly the opposite.”
Sevigny, who played Bale’s secretary Jean in the movie, also struggled with his demeanor. “I was trying to respect his process, which I found challenging because I’m very gregarious and silly and goofy, unbeknownst to the general public,” the actress said. “When people take themselves so seriously, I kind of shut down, even though I take my work very seriously and I love acting and whatnot.”
“I was really intimidated by his process and intimidated by him,” she admitted. “I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego.”
“It was a really challenging dynamic for me, but I don’t think that I thought he was bad,” Sevigny continued. “I was just kind of confused, like, ‘Why aren’t you being social?'”
Sevigny then admitted that she didn’t even know what “Method acting” even was at the time, which only made matters even worse. “I never had any formal training; I think I was just kind of ‘fake it until you make it,'” she said. “But the whole Method thing, I was like, ‘What even is this approach?’ It was very intimidating.”
Lucas agreed, adding that he’s now learned that Bale’s ways aren’t even the most intense Method actors out there.
“There’s a really weird bridge, as you know, between bad Method actors—who I find really, really terrible to work with—and the ones like Christian, [who’s] not paying attention to fucking anything else but what he’s doing,” Lucas explained. “I have nothing but admiration for that, because a lot of Method actors are actually kind of distracting with the fact that their process is more important than anything or anybody else.”
Sevigny then finished the thought saying Bale’s love for Method is “kind of surprising” given his career “because he was a child actor.” “It’s not like he studied in college and then became this Method-y, Brando-y kind of thing,” she said. “He found this journey from being a child actor to then an adult actor that I think is a really interesting trajectory, and I’m curious about that.”
So while it seems like both stars didn’t have the best experience with Bale on set, they’ve now grown to understand and even admire Bale’s unique approach. After all, anyone who’s seen American Psycho knows how effective and eerily disconcerting he was in the movie. Worth it at the end, right?
Before you go, click here to see celebrity co-stars who allegedly hated each other in real life.
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