Chlo? Sevigny Found Christian Bale’s Acting Process “Very Intimidating” In ‘American Psycho’: “I Was Just Kind Of Confused”

Armando Tinoco
·2 min read

Chlo? Sevigny is recalling her time filming American Psycho and recently revealed she found Christian Bale’s acting process “very intimidating.”

In a new interview with her other American Psycho co-star, Josh Lucas, the pair reminisced about working with Bale.

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“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,” she told Vanity Fair. “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.”

Sevigny found it difficult to cope with Bale’s “Method acting,” saying she “was really intimidated by his process and intimidated by him.”

“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,” she continued. “I was just kind of confused, like, ‘Why aren’t you being social?’ I wasn’t even that aware of what the Method thing was. I never had any formal training; I think I was just kind of ‘fake it until you make it.’ But the whole Method thing, I was like, What even is this approach? It was very intimidating.”

Lucas weighed in on the subject and said he didn’t share Sevigny’s views, noting that at the time, he thought Bale’s acting “was terrible.”

“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***ing brilliant choice that he was making,” Lucas said. “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. I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but was exactly the opposite.”

American Psycho, a film directed by Mary Harron, was released in the year 2000 based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. The film follows Bale as Patrick Bateman, an investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Starring alongside Bale, Sevigny, and Lucas were Willem Dafoe, Jared Letos, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Bill Sage, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, Guinevere Turner, and Reese Witherspoon.

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