The undisputed king of Hollywood body transformations, Christian Bale’s intense physical and mental commitment to his roles make him one of the impressive method actors on the silver screen. Over the years, Bale has moulded and re-moulded his body for his craft, from shredded serial killer Patrick Bateman to rotund US politician Dick Cheney – proving time and time again that, with a little prep, he can morph into any character he chooses.
Whether he’s required to gain weight, drop fat, put on muscle, shave his head, or even “thicken his neck” in order to physically fulfil the demands of his movie roles, Bale’s chameleonic approach has immortalised him in cinematic history. Which is probably why, after more than 20 years on an extreme bodyweight rollercoaster, he’s put the transformation game behind him for the sake of his health. “I can’t keep doing it. I really can’t,” Bale told the Sunday Times Culture. “My mortality is staring me in the face.”
Until 2001, the Welshman was still seen as a former child actor, having cut his teeth in Empire of the Sun, Newsies and Little Women. Then came American Psycho. Incredibly, prior to donning Patrick Bateman’s tailored suit, Bale had never stepped foot in a gym. Determined to beat Leonardo DiCaprio for the casting, he began training relentlessly. “After every day he would go work out for hours and hours and hours to get into that incredible shape,” says Matt Ross, who played Bateman’s colleague Luis Carruthers.
For 2004’s The Machinist, Bale deployed a brutal black coffee fast that led to what is, ostensibly, one of the craziest body transformations we’ve ever seen; dropping an eye-watering four stone in four months on a diet of one apple and a tin of tuna per day, plus a Herculean amount of cigarettes and the occasional drop of whisky.
After wrapping up filming – at 6ft tall and weighing in at just 54kg – an emaciated Bale began bulking up for the first movie in the Dark Knight trilogy, ‘binge-eating and weightlifting’ pizza and ice cream until the scales tipped 84kg just six months after finishing The Machinist.
“I overdid it because I was enjoying gorging. I was ignoring advice about taking it slowly because my stomach had shrunk, and I should just go with soups… I was straight into pizza and ice-cream and eating five meals in a sitting,” he told The Huffington Post.
In the nine years between Batman Begins and American Hustle, Bale’s weight continued to yo-yo for his roles. He shed 25kg for Rescue Dawn, before packing on muscle for The Prestige, and more for The Dark Knight, until he reached 86kg. “My whole thing was about having speed, strength, stamina and agility – being that lean would be counterproductive to some of those things – I want a bit more weight there,” he told Train Mag. “Batman relies on speed and strategy. Diet-wise I would eat smaller meals every two or three hours. Each meal I would aim for a balance of lean proteins, carbs and good, healthy fats.”
It wasn’t long until Bale’s scales began to dip once again. He dropped to 80kg to play John Conner in Terminator Salvation, and whittled down drastically to 65kg to portray a professional boxer and recovering drug addict in The Fighter – a role that saw him bag an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. For this transformation, he focused on exercise. “I was just running like crazy. I could just run for hours on end and I felt really healthy,” he said.
Reprising his role as the caped crusader for a final run, Bale hit the gym once again to return to his previous Batman weight for The Dark Knight Rises, but with a different aesthetic. “This is the first adversary [Bane] that can physically dominate Batman,” Bale explained to MTV. “And we should recognise also in his somewhat weakened state that this is just not the same Batman that we’ve been accustomed to seeing before.”
To play con artist Irving Rosenfeld in 2013’s Hustle, Bale began gaining weight once more, stacking on 20kg ahead of the critically-acclaimed heist caper. His approach involved eating “lots of doughnuts, a whole lot of cheeseburgers and whatever I could get my hands on,” he told People after filming wrapped. “I literally ate anything that came my way.”
Just six months after the camera powered down for American Hustle, Bale went biblical with his portrayal of a svelte Moses in Exodus: Gods and Kings. To drop his weight down to 86kg, his gruelling fitness regimen comprised cardio – like swimming and running – and a three-day power weightlifting routine, according to Health Fitness Revolution.
Fast-forward to 2018, and Bale was just coming off playing former US vice president Dick Cheney in Vice – a role for which he’d gained almost 20kg – when he assumed the character of race car driver Ken Miles in Le Mans ’66. To squeeze into the “tight” race cars in the movie, Bale took some drastic measures in order to slim down. Again.
“[Christian] was coming off Vice, and from the time we decided to do the movie to the time we started shooting, he dropped 30 kilos,” Bale’s co-star, Matt Damon, told Men’s Journal. “The first day on the set, I asked him: ‘How did you do that?’ I’ve lost weight and gained weight for parts, and there are lots of theories on how to do it. And he just looked at me and said: ‘I didn’t eat.’ That guy is cut from a different cloth.”
Overall, ScreenRant estimates that Bale has gained and lost approximately 276kg over the course of his career. It’s hard to calculate the exact figure, but even so, it’s little wonder he’s chosen to put the days of drastic Hollywood transformations behind him. “I’ve become a little bit more boring now, because I’m older and I feel like if I keep doing what I’ve done in the past I’m going to die,” he said in a 2019 interview with E!. “So, I’d prefer not to die.”
