Christian Bale sarcastically credits Leonardo DiCaprio for his cinematic career; “Any role that anybody gets, it’s only because he’s passed it on”

Christian Bale, who is gearing up for his star-studded feature Amsterdam, cheekily revealed that he – and many other actors – owe their cinematic careers to Leonardo DiCaprio, who seemingly turned down those roles.

"Look, to this day, any role that anybody gets, it's only because he's passed on it beforehand," Bale told GQ in a candid interview. "It doesn't matter what anyone tells you. It doesn't matter how friendly you are with the directors. All those people that I've worked with multiple times, they all offered every one of those roles to him first."

"So, thank you, Leo, because literally, he gets to choose everything he does," Bale concluded. "And good for him, he's phenomenal." Bale further noted that he's never taken it personally for DiCaprio being the casting directors’ first choice for their films. "No. Do you know how grateful I am to get any damn thing? I mean, I can't do what he does," Bale said.

"And he does it magnificently. But I would suspect that almost everybody of similar age to him in Hollywood owes their careers to him passing on whatever project it is." As Entertainment Weekly notes, one role that DiCaprio reportedly declined was of the axe-wielding serial killer Patrick Bateman in the 2000 horror film American Psycho. When DiCaprio ultimately turned down the project, Bale took the baton that eventually led him to mainstream success.

They had paid me the absolute minimum they were legally allowed to pay me," he said of the Bateman role. "I remember one time sitting in the makeup trailer and the makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them." At the time, Bale said that "nobody wanted me to do" the film apart from director Mary Harron, which contributed to his lower wage.

"They said they would only make it if they could pay me that amount," Bale explained. "I was prepping for it when other people were playing the part. I was still prepping for it. And, you know, it moved on. I lost my mind. But I won it back."

Also Read: Christian Bale says he avoided talking to Amsterdam co-star Chris Rock on set as he was ‘so bloody funny’