Actor Christian Bale lost 63 pounds for The Machinist

Christian Bale is no stranger to altering his appearance for a role.

He has often shed weight for films, whittling himself down to one third of his body weight in one instance. But Bale’s latest role has him going to the other weight extreme.

For his role as an industrial worker who hasn’t slept in a year in 2004’s “The Machinist,” Bale lost 63 pounds by living on a diet of apples, coffee and cigarettes

Due to his part in The Machinist (2004), Christian Bale was vastly underweight (about 120 pounds on his 6 foot+ frame) when he was under consideration for the part. After being cast, he was told to become as “big as you could be” by Christopher Nolan. Bale underwent a dietary and exercise regimen and ending up weighing about 220 pounds (about 40 pounds above his normal weight). It was decided that Bale had became too large (friends of his on the film’s crew dubbed him “Fatman”) and he quickly shed about 20 pounds to have leaner, more muscular frame. Bale gained 100 pounds in 6 months, describing the experience as an unbearable physical ordeal.

Used to it, Bale get down in weight again for Rescue down (2005) in which he lost other 55 puonds. Not to forget at this point performances like “The Prestige” where Bale was still in good shape and the finally contrast between Batman in “The dark knight” and Jonh Connor in “Terminator salvation”.
Bale is known as a class A method actor and he got famous also for his perfect way of learning and performing accent through the entire filming, so to make the cast believing of his fake “american” origins.

Agencies