One of Christian Bale‘s signature moves is losing and gaining drastic amounts of weight between roles, but it seems he might be done with it, after a particularly extreme transformation for Ford vs Ferrari.
Back in 2004, the actor dropped down to 54kg for his role in thriller The Machinist, then immediately bulked up for Batman Begins, spending six months hitting the gym and scoffing junk food.
He underwent a similar transformation recently, dropping a staggering 31kg after playing Dick Cheney in Vice, in order to take on the role of race car driver Ken Ford.
While he said that he enjoyed gaining weight to play Cheney, something he achieved by “eating a lot of pies”, he added that “it was more fun gaining the weight than losing it.”
Speaking with CBS This Morning, he indicated that he probably won’t attempt something like that again. “I keep saying I’m done with it. I really think I’m done with it, yeah,” he said.
His Ford vs Ferrari co-star Matt Damon chimed in, saying:
“I had a great time watching him. He’s got an incredible monk-like discipline, like, when he had to lose … he went from Dick Cheney to this guy. So he had to lose 70 pounds.”
Christian Bale recently revealed that Cheney himself had some feedback on his performance in Vice, although it was not very flattering. He told Yahoo Entertainment:
“Strangely enough it was through my son’s school. One of the moms was at a party that [Cheney] was at, and she said, ‘Oh, I’m going to be seeing Christian tomorrow, you have anything to say to him?’ And he said, ‘Tell him he’s a dick.’ I went, ‘Oh, at least he’s got a sense of humor,’ and she said, ‘No, there was no humor to it whatsoever.’”
