Christian Bale Reacts To Luca Guadagnino’s ‘American Psycho’ Remake: “Bold Choice For Anyone To Try…I Like Brave People”

We’re still waiting to learn about who will ultimately play the new version of Patrick Bateman in Luca Guadagnino‘s take on the Bret Easton Ellis novel “American Psycho,” after it had been turned into a feature iteration in 2000 from Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron and starred future Oscar-winner Christian Bale just before he exploded into leading man status. Speaking of Bale, he’s finally commented on the new take of the material.

When directly asked by The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet of his new film “The Bride!” about his feelings on the gestating remake and who should potentially take on the Patrick Bateman role, he had nothing but optimism for the new creative team and unknown actor.

READ MORE: 13 March Films To Watch: ‘Project Hail Mary,’ ‘Peaky Blinders,’ ‘Hoppers’ & ’The Bride!’

“You know, whoever wants to give it a shot, give it a pop. I just loved making it [the original 2000 film] with Mary Herron so many years back, fantastic memories of it. Bold choice for anyone to try…all the best to them! I like brave people.”

The heightened satirical-leaning story of “American Psycho” focuses on a young, wealthy professional, Bateman, in the excess world of 1980s New York City finance, and also happens to be a ruthless serial killer obsessed with carnage, which may or may not be all in his head. As there is an investigation into a missing colleague, the audience believes he was, in actuality, a victim who was butchered by Bateman with an axe in his own apartment.

Despite Guadagnino briefly promoting the film during Lionsgate‘s presentation at 2025’s CinemaCon (the studio convention for press and exhibitors that is held in Las Vegas), we’re still in the dark about when “American Psycho” will go into production and what the cast will look like. Although the Italian filmmaker has been busy shooting his next release, “Artificial,” a new tech-world biopic focused on the AI company OpenAI, with Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”) playing the film’s version of Sam Altman.

On another note, Ellis recently revealed they’re planning on tackling something closer to the novel than Herron’s film, calling it “completely different,” and claimed that multiple big-name actors have passed on playing Bateman. On-the-rise actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, most recently seen in “The White Lotus,” had been one of the few actors openly campaigning for the “remake.”

Support independent movie journalism to keep it alive. Sign up for The Playlist Newsletter. All the content you want and, oh, right, it’s free.

That exchange between Bale and THR on his reaction to the “American Psycho” remake can be watched below.

"Whoever wants to give it a shot, give it a pop!" – Christian Bale shares his thoughts on Luca Guadagnino remaking #AmericanPsycho pic.twitter.com/4dmchV6j8G

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 4, 2026