Christian Bale Says He’s Done Getting Fat for Roles
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Christian Bale is no stranger to gaining and losing weight. From a harrowing feat of emaciation in 2004’s “The Machinist” to getting plump for both last year’s “Vice” and 2013’s “American Hustle,” Bale has gotten fat, and thin — and also pretty jacked, in “American Psycho” and Christopher Nolan’s Batman films — for many of his roles.
Well, according to the English actor, those days are done. As reported by Entertainment Weekly in this weekend’s “CBS Sunday Morning” episode, the Academy Award-winning star of “The Fighter” said that he likely won’t be packing on or shedding the pounds again anytime soon. “I keep saying I’m done with it,” Bale tells CBS Sunday Morning. “I really think I’m done with it, yeah.”
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Bale has long been defined by his rigorous commitment to whatever weight fluctuation a role demands. For “The Machinist,” he ate a can of tuna and an apple every day, whittling himself down by 65 pounds. To play pot-bellied Dick Cheney in “Vice,” Bale stuffed himself with pies.
Christian Bale currently stars as Ken Miles in director James Mangold’s Oscar hopeful “Ford v Ferrari,” opening November 15. Bale will compete for Best Actor for the role, and if nominated, the film would make it his fifth Academy Award nod. He won Best Supporting Actor for “The Fighter” in 2011, yet another role that Bale had to slim down for, starving himself to play meth addicted ex-boxer Dick “Dicky” Eklund.
On the upcoming “CBS Sunday Morning” spotlight, Christian Bale’s “Ford v Ferrari” co-star Matt Damon seems nonplussed about Bale’s addictions to onscreen transformation. “I had a great time watching him,” Damon said of his collaborator. “He’s got an incredible monk-like discipline…he went from Dick Cheney to this guy. So he had to lose 70 pounds.”
The plot of “Ford v Ferrari” centers around Matt Damon as American car designer Carroll Shelby, with Bale playing his driver Ken Miles. Together, they battle corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to put together a game-changing race car for Ford and challenge Ferrari at the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.
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