Entertainment
Christian Bale says any role he – and every other Hollywood actor – gets is because Leonardo DiCaprio turns it down first-Mel Evans-Entertainment – Metro
We can have multiple legends, right?
Christian Bale concedes most actors got their roles because Leo DiCaprio said no (Picture: Rex/Shutterstock/Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Can you imagine Christian Bale playing Jack Dawson? What about Leonardo DiCaprio as Patrick Bateman? It could have happened, you know.
In recalling his amazing career, Batman legend Christian has revealed most of his roles have had *something* to do with Leo saying no, thank you.
It’s said the star lost ‘at least five roles’ to Leonardo in the 90s, including Titanic, which saw the former child star catapulted to a level of international stardom he’s held onto since.
And while Christian’s career is hardly something to sneeze at (and he, along with Leo, has an Oscar in his trophy cabinet) he does concede most actors have not only lost out on roles to Leonardo, but that the roles they do get are only because they were his to turn down.
Christian’s star turn in 2000 thriller American Psycho saw him take on the role of axe-wielding, investment banking executive Patrick Bateman, but apparently Leonardo was up for it, too, with the film’s co-writer Guinevere Turner claiming it was author Gloria Steinem who convinced Leo to turn down the film.
This seeming Hollywood competition stirs no hard feelings for Christian, though.
Christian has had a stellar career. He was Batman, for one (Picture: Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)
Apparently Leo has had his fair share of films to choose from (Picture: Getty)
He told GQ: ‘Oh, dude. It’s not just me. Look, to this day, any role that anybody gets, it’s only because he’s passed on it beforehand. 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. Right? 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.’
Leonardo starred alongside Kate Winslet in 1997’s Titanic (Picture: 20th Century Fox/Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
Christian is well-known for his turn as American Psycho Patrick Bateman (Picture: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)
Asked whether he takes it ‘personally’ Christian said he doesn’t believe he can ‘do what he does’ but that also he isn’t into the kind of fame that follows Leonardo around, as well.
He said: ‘Do you know how grateful I am to get any damn thing? I mean, I can’t do what he does. 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.’
Christian is in good company when it comes to actors who were up for the gig, with Matthew McConaughey saying he got to the screen test stage with Kate Winslet, who played the lead Rose DeWitt Bukater alongside Leo’s Jack Dawson.
Recalling the process on Rob Lowe’s podcast Literally! with Rob Lowe, he said: ‘So I went and read with Kate Winslet and it was not one of the auditions — they filmed it so it was like into screen test time. After we left, you know, it was one of those ones where they, like, followed me and when we got outside they were like, “That went great.” I mean, kind of, like, hugs. I really thought it was going to happen. It did not.’
Read the full interview in GQ now.
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