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Nov 15, 2019 · Christian Bale is a master at transformation—he's gained and lost weight for multiple movie roles. Here's a list of his most intense physical transformations.
- temi.adebowale@hearst.com
- Matthew Jussim
- American Psycho, 2000. One of Bale’s first major Hollywood body transformations came for his role as Patrick Bateman in the dark comedy/thriller American Psycho, based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis.
- The Machinist, 2004. This role might be the most extreme—and dangerous—transformation that Bale ever did. To play an insomniac machine worker who is dealing with hallucinations, Bale lost 63 pounds and kept a very small diet to maintain the weight for filming.
- Batman Begins, 2005 - The Dark Knight, 2008 - The Dark Knight Rises, 2012. Bale muscled up three different times to play the iconic superhero Batman for Christopher Nolan’s critically-acclaimed Dark Knight series.
- Ford v Ferrari - 2019. After gaining over 40 pounds to play former Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice, Bale had to quickly change his physical form again to start filming Ford v Ferrari.
- Georgia May
- The Machinist (2004) The Machinist not only marks Christian Bale's most challenging body transformation, but represents the most extreme body weight transformation by anyone in the history of cinema.
- American Hustle (2013) If you've seen American Hustle, the image that likely sticks out most in your head is Christian Bale slumped in a chair with his stomach protruding over his shorts.
- The Fighter (2010) In The Fighter, we're greeted with another sunken-faced Christian Bale, this time playing a boxer with a drug habit. He accomplished his 145-pound physique with lots of running (rather than starving).
- Batman Begins (2005) Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins may not have seen Bale at his bulkiest, but what's so impressive about this particular role is the speed at which he put on all that weight: Just six months prior, he was shooting The Machinist at his skinniest weight (more on that below).
- American Psycho (2000) Bale already had 20 film and TV credits to his name by the time he was cast as the super-jacked (and super-deranged) Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, but it was this role that would bring him his first taste of real critical acclaim.
- The Machinist (2004) In what would be remembered as one of the most dramatic instances of role-related weight loss in Hollywood history, Bale shed over 60 pounds (33 percent of his body weight) in just four months in order to play emaciated insomniac Trevor Reznik in psychological thriller The Machinist.
- Batman Begins (2005) When The Machinist wrapped, Bale only had six months to transform himself from a bag of bones to a beefed up superhero. Anyone watching The Machinist at the time of release would have likely laughed you out of the room had you said that this guy would be the next Batman, but the dedicated actor proved he was more than up for the challenge.
- Rescue Dawn (2006) After making a hugely successful start to his tenure as Bruce Wayne in 2005, Bale was cast in veteran director Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, a biopic following the extraordinary military career of Dieter Dengler.
- 10 Thor: Love and Thunder
- 9 Amsterdam
- 8 Rescue Dawn
- 7 The Fighter
- 6 Ford V Ferrrari
- 5 Vice
- 4 American Psycho
- 3 American Hustle
- 2 The Machinist
- 1 Batman Begins
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While it was hardly a great movie, Christian Bale got the chance to ham it up in Thor: Love and Thunderas Gorr the God Butcher, a creepy villain who seemed akin to a demon monk. Bale got to act out a complicated character arc as a loving father who becomes truly dangerous and demonic as a result of outside forces, but who just might be able to rede...
Again, Amsterdam is not a good movie, but Bale is hilariously quirky as Burt Berendsen, a mischievous doctor with a fake eye. Director David O. Russell has helmed other Christian Bale films, and their working relationship has led the actor to deliver some of his best performances (The Fighter, American Hustle). He's delightful here, standing out am...
Werner Herzog's film Rescue Dawn serves as a dramatized remake of his own documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, and casts Bale as the main protagonist, a German-American pilot who is held in Vietnam as a prisoner of war. Since the film only had a month and a half to shoot the entire production and Bale was supposed to lose a large amount of weig...
2010’s biographical sports drama The Fighter centers on the lives of professional boxer Micky Ward and his older half-brother Dicky Eklund, as the former attempts to escape the shadow of Dicky and achieve his own boxing greatness. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as the dueling brothers, the film was inspired by the 1995 documentary High o...
After having previously gained 40 pounds for his role as US Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice, Bale had to subsequently shed the extra weight quickly to portray British race car driver Ken Miles in the Oscar-nominated drama Ford v Ferrari.The James Mangold picture chronicles the partnership between Miles and automotive designer Carroll Shelby as t...
To star as former United States President Dick Cheney, Christian Bale was challenged with putting on extensive weight for the role in the 2018 Adam McKay black comedy Vice. In order to fully embody the controversial politician, Bale completely transformed himself: he put on 40 pounds of fat, shaved his head and even bleached his eyebrows. To gain t...
Christian Bale delivered a tour de force performance as a deranged investment banker with an affinity for murder and mayhem in the horror cult classic American Psycho, brilliantly portraying the chilling serial killer Patrick Bateman as he leads a dangerous double life. Bale was the first choice to play the demented New York yuppie by both the film...
David O’Russell’s critically-acclaimed black comedy crime flick American Hustle features an A list ensemble cast including some of Hollywood’s finest like Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams. Bale and Adams staras two con artists who are forced to aid an FBI agent to set up an elaborate sting operation on corrupt politic...
Undeniably Christian Bale’s most shocking physical transformation (and arguably one of cinema’s most intense of all time) was for his role in the 2004 psychological thriller The Machinist. In the film, Bale stars as the haunted (and haunting) titular character as he struggles with delusions, guilt and paranoia as a result of not sleeping for a year...
For his beloved role as the iconic DC masked vigilante, Christian Bale had to literally go from one extreme to the next; he had to regain the weight he lost for The Machinist in six weeks to be ready for his screen test for Batman Begins. To do so the actor hired a personal trainer to help him gain 100 pounds of muscle within that short time period...
Christian Bale is a chameleonic actor who can gain or lose weight, shave his head, and change his appearance for his roles. See how he transformed himself for movies like The Fighter, Vice, and Ford v Ferrari.
- Writer & Republish Editor
Oct 3, 2018 · Christian Bale is famous for undergoing extreme physical transformations on the big screen, and such is the case with the actor’s latest role as Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s “Vice” ( watch the...
Oct 5, 2018 · By shaving his head, bleaching his brows, and gaining 40 pounds—and focusing on special exercises that would thicken his neck. Watch the trailer, and shudder in fear. There may be no other actor ...
