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Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise reportedly had an unique connection with American Psycho, even though he never appeared in the movie. Bret Easton Ellis, who authored the American Psycho novel, which was later adapted into Mary Harron’s cult classic Hollywood film, actually involved Tom Cruise in the protagonist’s life in a very crucial way. According to Entertainment Weekly, in the story, the author made Cruise and the main character of the book, Patrick Bateman, live together in the same apartment.
But despite the Top Gun actor’s involvement, he couldn’t make it to the final cut of the movie adaptation, which starred Christian Bale as Bateman. Director Mary Harron recently revealed why Cruise wasn’t in the movie and joked about how she and the production team wanted the actor to be in it. However, his presence was always felt as Christian Bale took inspiration from the actor to breathe life into the character of Patrick Bateman onscreen.
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In an interview with Letterboxd, Harron said that she and the creative team “love the Tom Cruise thing, but we would never have gotten Tom Cruise to be in such a heinous production as American Psycho!” But as she recalled, Cruise still played an important role in the film as Bale took inspiration from while essaying the role. Recalling the incident, Harron shared that Christian Bale “called me at one point and said, ‘I saw Tom Cruise on a talk show last night, and there was something about that friendliness, with almost nothing behind the eyes.'”
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This is not the first time Harron revealed how Bale’s portrayal of Patrick Bateman was immensely influenced by Tom Cruise. During a 2009 interview (via Oh No They Didn’t), Harron shared how Bale drew inspiration from Cruise’s appearance on David Letterman’s Late Show. She revealed that Bale perfected his character for the film and followed the mannerisms of the Mission: Impossible star.
The filmmaker said, “It was definitely a process. We talked a lot, but he was in L.A. and I was in New York. We didn’t actually meet in person a lot, just talked on the phone. We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave.”
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Christian Bale had received a lot of good reviews for his performance in American Psycho. But despite all the positivity, the movie and the book created a lot of controversy. In 1990, there were reports against the novel for being too harsh and that it was dumped by Simon & Schuster (a huge publishing agency) for having “violent and women-hating content” in it. But with time, it only expanded to a global audience and was accepted by everyone. So much so that in 2016, it further got a sequel and a Broadway adaptation.
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