Is that you, Christian Bale? Actor disappears into the role of Dick Cheney in first 'Vice' teaser

Christian Bale, left, and Dick Cheney
Christian Bale, left, stars as Dick Cheney, right, in Vice. (Photo: Annapurna Pictures/Getty Images)

Christian Bale has done it again.

The actor is known for transforming his body for roles (see: The Fighter, The Machinist, American Hustle, and many more). The first teaser for his upcoming movie, a Dick Cheney biopic titled Vice, shows that his prep work to portray former President George W. Bush’s vice president, both in his younger and older years, has paid off.

Vice director Adam McKay shared the clip, along with a promise that the full trailer will debut Wednesday.

In the teaser, audiences see Bale as the familiar, older Cheney, trudging along with a stack of presumably important government documents, followed by a quick glimpse at him dancing with wife, Lynne (played by Amy Adams), dealing with the Iraq War, and taking the infamous 2006 hunting trip in which he shot a companion.

Dick Cheney, left, and Christian Bale
Dick Cheney in 1975, left, and Christian Bale as a younger Cheney in Vice. (Photos: AP Images; Annapurna Pictures)

Bale has said that the time he put in preparing for the role was unlike any other.

“It was the first time in my life that I realized I had to do this in a smart way. I’ve lost weight, I’ve gained weight, [but] I never went to a nutritionist in my life,” Bale told CBS This Morning in December. “It was the first time that I said, ‘You know what? I better really do this the right way.’”

Now 44, Bale wanted to be kinder to his body.

“In the past for losing weight I went, ‘Ah, I’ll just smoke and drink whiskey and eat everything,’ and it worked! But I’m in my mid-40s now and I just thought, ‘Probably just eating cream puffs nonstop is not gonna be so good for my ticker,’” he said.

Bale made other changes, too, in the name of resembling Cheney from the time he entered politics in the ’70s, through his 60s, when he held the second-highest office in the country.

“This is more kind of a blank canvas through which these incredible artists could create the various ages of Cheney,” he told Yahoo in January. “[My hair] has grown back in more. They would shave my head every day, bleach and pluck eyebrows.”

Vice is set to arrive in theaters on Dec. 21, a sign that the studio is expecting big things for Bale come awards season.

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