It's hard to keep up with all of Christian Bale's dramatic weight changes for movies. You know who's also tired of keeping up with them? Christian Bale.
Granted, he's said that before. But Christian Bale is 45-years-old now, fresh off a whiplash-inducing 70-pound drop from Vice to Ford v Ferrari. If he hadn't just gained a dad bod to play Dick Cheney in Vice, he wouldn't have had such a massive weight loss to play professional race car driver Ken Miles in Ford v Ferrari. It's probably due to that huge movie-to-movie drop that he's finally ready to actually mean it when he says he's done.
I keep saying I’m done with it. I really think I’m done with it, yeah.
That's what Christian Bale told CBS Sunday Morning's Tracy Smith for an interview airing this Sunday, November 10 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.
Christian Bale was joined by his Ford v Ferrari co-star Matt Damon, who plays American auto designer/engineer Carroll Shelby in the biographical drama. Damon is also no stranger to major weight loss and gain for roles -- he's talked about his ill-advised diet to lose about 40 pounds for Courage Under Fire. But Christian Bale has basically made a career of that kind of extreme control, and Damon paid homage:
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.
Before Vice, Christian Bale was in Hostiles, and he told Yahoo he put on 40 pounds -- and shaved his head and bleached his eyebrows -- to go from Captain Joseph J. Blocker in Hostiles to former Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice.
Apparently Dick Cheney was not a big fan of Christian Bale in Vice, either, since Bale was apparently told through a third party that Cheney wanted to pass on a message to call Bale a dick. He wasn't joking around, either.
During their CBS interview, Christian Bale paid his own respects back to Matt Damon, but in a different way. Sounds like Bale has been the second choice for a few roles out there that Damon passed on:
I am very grateful to Matt because I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for roles he passed on. There are many roles where I was told, ‘Oh, well, Matt doesn’t want to do it. So they went, ugh, all right, what about Bale?’ And then I got the role. So thank you for that, Matt.
I find it hard to believe Christian Bale isn't a director's first choice every time. But it's no secret that Matt Damon (needs to be saved a lot on film) has passed on a lot of roles -- in Avatar, Brokeback Mountain, Star Trek, The Quick and the Dead, Daredevil, etc. Apparently Damon was going to do Rescue Dawn, which ultimately starred Christian Bale, but Damon's own mom talked him out of going into the jungle and losing a bunch of weight.
We'll have to see if Christian Bale sticks with his latest plan to stop the weight swings. Ford v Ferrari hits theaters this coming Friday, November 15, and so far it's getting good reviews.
