Chloe Sevigny 'confused' by Christian Bale's Method acting
Chloe Sevigny has admitted she felt "confused" and "intimidated" by Christian Bale on the set of their movie 'American Psycho' because he was using a Method acting process which isolated him from the rest of the cast.
Chloe Sevigny felt "confused" and "intimidated" by Christian Bale's Method acting technique on the set of 'American Psycho'.
The actress appeared alongside Bale in the 2000 film about a banker who leads a double life as a serial killer and she has confessed she couldn't understand why her co-star was being so distant when they were making the film together.
She told Vanity Fair magazine: "I was trying to respect his process, which I found challenging because I’m very gregarious and silly and goofy, unbeknownst to the general public.
"When people take themselves so seriously, I kind of shut down, even though I take my work very seriously and I love acting and whatnot ...
"I was really intimidated by his process and intimidated by him. I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego. It was a really challenging dynamic for me, but I don’t think that I thought he was bad.
"I was just kind of confused, like, ‘Why aren’t you being social?’"
Chloe went on to admit she had no idea what he was doing because she had little knowledge of Method acting - in which actors often totally immerse themself in a character to the point of obsession in order to bring realism to the role.
She added: "I wasn’t even that aware of what the Method thing was. I never had any formal training; I think I was just kind of ‘fake it until you make it.’
"But the whole Method thing, I was like, What even is this approach? It was very intimidating."
Fellow 'American Psycho' star Josh Lucas also weighed in on Bale's Method style - declaring he thought he was a terrible actor until he realised what Bale was up to.
He added: "The first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false — and I now realise that it was this just ... brilliant choice that he was making.
"That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already. And that he was capable of having these crazy layers going on in what he was doing. I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but was exactly the opposite."
