Tom Cruise was the inspiration for Christian Bale’s portrayal of a bloodthirsty maniac in American Psycho, according to the movie’s director Mary Harron.
The Dark Knight actor took on the role of Patrick Bateman in the 2000 thriller, playing a wealthy young investment banker who apparently leads a double life as a vicious multiple murderer, Contactmusic reported. Director Harron has revealed Bale based the character’s persona on Cruise after seeing the Hollywood star give an interview on TV.
“We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave,” the website quoted her. “And then one day, he called me and said he’d been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy,” she added.