Christian Bale loves punishing his body as much as he does film crews. In the name of art, the actor became a living skeleton for The Machinist, packed on the muscle for the Batman movies, then sagged into sadness for American Hustle. It’s probably not entirely healthy or necessary, but it’s resulted in some truly great onscreen performances, so who are we to argue?
Bale’s latest transformation is for Adam McKay’s Backseat, in which the actor was improbably cast as former Vice President Dick Cheney. “This one will be easy,” Bale said while scanning the script. “Bring me pies.” And while we’ve gotten a peek at what those pies have wrought, it wasn’t until yesterday that Bale did what those on Tinder are often too afraid to: post a full-body shot.
Bale stands with his head shaved, hands pocketed, and mouth pursed, leaning against a beige wall as if his mom were on her fifth attempt at taking a photo. You’d think he were playing the kid in this meme, not one of politics’ greatest villains.
The transformation is shocking, to say the least, and has inspired some good riffs on Twitter.
One Twitter user even took it upon themselves to map out Bale’s physical transformations over the years.
The human body is an unpredictable thing, sir. You’re playing with fire.