Why American Psycho's Director Was Initially Fired From The Christian Bale Movie
by Witney Seibold · /Film2000's "American Psycho," as directed by Mary Harron, is laser-focused on the vanity, bizarreness, and overall moral emptiness of Ronald Reagan's greedy yuppie class of the 1980s ... and yet, it feels weirdly universal and timeless. In the '80s, laissez-faire capitalism gave rise to a certain kind of aggressive business-bro whose only reason for existence was to earn more and more money. The characters in "American Psycho" are all nondescript businessmen, as handsome on the outside as they are ugly within. They juggle with imaginary numbers, get rich, and call themselves smart. They also have terrible taste and treat women like garbage. And at the dark heart of this world is Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a literal serial killer who murders without remorse and then whines when he can't get blood out of his bedsheets. He's like a dark version of Tom Cruise.
"American Psycho" was based on the notorious 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and Harron took all the murderous rage and amorality of the book and cast it through the lens of toxic maleness. In Harron's vision, greed, vanity, murder, and hate all spring from the same fetid petri dish in the male mind.
Yet, as detailed in Vice's 2020 oral history, Harron almost didn't direct "American Psycho." While she was writing the film (with Guinevere Turner), she envisioned Bale as Patrick Bateman. At the time, Bale was already a recognizable talent, having appeared in movies like "Newsies," "Swing Kids," 1994's "Little Women," and "The Portrait of a Lady." Lionsgate, however, wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to star. Harron liked DiCaprio, but she hated him for the role of Patrick Bateman, so she was briefly fired over the matter. During the interim, Oliver Stone took her place.
Lionsgate fired Mary Harron over the casting of Patrick Bateman
Christian Bale, as mentioned, was a rising star in the indie movie world, but Leonardo DiCaprio was the "It" boy of the day back when "American Psycho" was in pre-production. He had recently helped usher in the era of "cool" William Shakespeare adaptations with the MTV-inflected "Romeo + Juliet," and, of course, was the star of "Titanic," the highest-grossing film ever (at that time). According to Bret Easton Ellis, Lionsgate was gearing up to pay DiCaprio $20 million to play Patrick Bateman.
Mary Harron had already written the "American Psycho" script with Guinevere Turner, though, and was gearing up to start filming when Lionsgate decided to hire a "celebrity" director instead. It was then that Turner, calling from the studio, told Harron about what was happening with their involvement in the project. As Harron recalled:
"[Lionsgate] had a wishlist of directors who were all very famous, and they ended up with Oliver Stone, and he pursued it for a while, and I know that they had a reading; Guinevere called me, and said she heard that Oliver Stone had a reading in his office of 'American Psycho' of our script, with Leo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, Jared Leto ... just a bunch of other people. And at the end of the reading, they were discussing how to change the script, basically."
Harron was, of course, crushed that her work was being so brusquely brushed aside, to the degree that other filmmakers were taking her script and openly discussing how it needed to be changed. She referred to it as the moment where she "grew up" as an artist. "[I] had no idea how disposable I was," she admitted.
Luckily, she was only off the project for a few weeks.
Mary Harron was hired back when Leonardo DiCaprio left to make The Beach
Mary Harron recalled that Oliver Stone or whoever was trying to take over "American Psycho" kept disagreeing as to how to make the movie. When Leonardo DiCaprio left to work on "The Beach" with director Danny Boyle, Lionsgate called Harron back. This time, though, she was prepared to take a stand:
"A few weeks later, my agent called. I thought she was calling to offer me compensation, but they wanted to give me the movie back. They couldn't agree on the script changes, and DiCaprio decided to go off into 'The Beach.' They said, 'She can have the movie back, but she cannot mention Christian Bale.' But I knew eventually they would give in."
As we now know, the studio did. Moviemaker Magazine also interviewed Harron about the DiCaprio debacle in 2020, and she reasoned that he had left the film because it was too violent; DiCaprio was too much of a teeny-bopper heartthrob to accept a vicious role like Patrick Bateman, she reckoned:
"Obviously, I think DiCaprio's a great actor, but I thought he was wrong for it. I thought Christian was better for it, and I also thought — and I think my instinct was right on this — he carried enormous baggage because he had just come off 'Titanic' and I thought you cannot take someone who has a worldwide fanbase of 15-year-old girls, 14-year-olds girls, and cast him as Patrick Bateman. It'll be intolerable, and everyone will interfere, and everyone will be terrified."
Harron's film came out the way she wanted it, and it's a good thing. "American Psycho" is easily one of the most influential horror movies of its decade (and one of the best to boot).