Sam Amico
Most movie fans know all about Christian Bale, from his role as Batman in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, to Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. His latest, Amsterdam, is in theaters now.
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And according to Bale, he owes it all to Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Any role that anybody gets, it’s only because [Dicaprio has] passed on it beforehand,” Bale, 48, joked in an interview with GQ.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone tells you. It doesn’t matter how friendly you are with the directors. All those people that I’ve worked with multiple times, they all offered every one of those roles to him first,” Bale said. “I had one of those people actually tell me that. So, thank you, Leo, because literally, he gets to choose everything he does. And good for him, he’s phenomenal.”
Bale wasn’t finished. He added that he’s not alone when it comes to pick up DiCaprio’s slack.
Christian Bale in Amsterdam
“Do you know how grateful I am to get any damn thing? I mean, I can’t do what he does,” Bale said. “I wouldn’t want the exposure that he has either. And he does it magnificently. But I would suspect that almost everybody of similar age to him in Hollywood owes their careers to him passing on whatever project it is.”
Amsterdam features an all-star cast that also includes the likes of Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Robert DeNiro, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift and Rami Malek.
Bale is the main man in the movie — a leading role he still doesn’t seem to comprehend.
“I’ve never considered myself a leading man. It’s just boring. You don’t get the good parts,” Bale told GQ. “Even if I play a lead, I pretend I’m playing like, you know, the fourth, fifth character down, because you get more freedom.”
