Bale is a born-again Christian

Christian Bale is one of the British film industry's best-kept secrets. At 26, he's quietly been turning out well-honed performances for over 13 years, since he made his breath-taking debut in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Empire Of The Sun when he was still in short trousers.

Already having amassed a huge following of 'Baleheads' on the internet, it seems that only Hollywood hasn't a clue who the boy from Bournemouth actually is. But scoring the lead in American Psycho, Mary (I Shot Andy Warhol) Harron's version of Bret Easton Ellis's controversial satire of a Wall Street serial killer, Bale is set to resurface, like it or not.

A handsome devil of a man, Bale has never craved the limelight. Back when he was doing Empire Of The Sun, he disappeared in Paris during a press tour for the film. Although he moved to Los Angeles when he finished school in 1992, he has studiously avoided the LA gossip circuit. He recently wed his sweetheart Sibi Blazic ('She's not in the industry,' is all he'll say) in Las Vegas in secret, reports only leaking out six weeks after the fact.

This admirable indifference to celebrity hasn't helped his career-arc, though. After Empire Of The Sun propelled Bale to stardom, he wound up in a string of stinkers and/or flops - the Disney musical Newsies, plus period adaptations The Portrait Of A Lady, The Secret Agent, and Little Women certainly spun the spotlight away from him. Others - Metroland, All The Little Animals, A Midsummer Night's Dream - barely registered on movie-goers' antennas. But American Psycho, which sees Bale team up with other hot young hopefuls Reese Witherspoon, Jared Leto and Chlo? Sevigny, will change all that. Won't it?

'I really have no idea. Although it's hyped as a much-anticipated film, that could end up as all it is - "much anticipated". On Velvet Goldmine [another little seen Bale effort], we felt that it was a "much anticipated" film, but it didn't really do anything. People called Psycho "career suicide", but I was so convinced I wanted to do it, it was just sort of amusing in a way, and almost encouraging.'

If American Psycho does tank, it would be a bitter-sweet end to a long affair. Attached to the project since July 1997, Bale had been working with director Mary Harron for ten months when they found themselves surplus to requirements after production company Lion's Gate decided they would prefer to have Leonardo DiCaprio playing the title role of Patrick Bateman.

'Obviously I was furious about it, but it's not that I'm so stupid I can't comprehend why they did it,' recalls Bale - whose understandable Leo-bashing of the time has subsequently abated. 'It was a business decision. I'm glad it didn't work out. It would have been terrible if the film had been made without Mary. But I'm not going to screw up the film by maintaining bad blood. Yeah, it wasted a lot of time. My mind was focused on doing this, and Mary and I kept on talking about it, believing we were the only ones going to make it. I couldn't focus on anything else. When I read other scripts, I just imagined playing it like Bateman.'

Having already spent months building up his six-pack to play this 'yuppie master of the universe', Bale let it all go when Leo stepped in. When Leo eventually opted out for the warmer waters of The Beach and Bale was brought back on the picture, he endured 'manic abdominal crunches' to get back into shape, even bleaching his teeth to give his character the 'Tom Cruise smile'. While he claims to have slept soundly playing a serial killer (though he subsequently had nightmares playing Jesus in a made for TV movie), Bale readily admits he began to adopt some of the external characteristics of the narcissistic Bateman. 'You can't play Bateman and have a beer belly. I had to become as obsessed and vain as he is. In terms of diet, going on a sunbed, stopping biting my nails - it was boring. You can't help but take on something of the character when you go through these rituals and routines.'

He also hung out with a number of Wall Street brokers who were around during the late Eighties stockmarket boom, a time when they were the rock stars of the commerce world. For many, Ellis's novel was their favourite book. 'What was disconcerting - but also amusing - was that the guys who are 27 now didn't seem to get that the book was laughing at them. They started to assume that you are the character, and I didn't let them think any other way. They were talking about "bitches", the whole deal. Bateman's obviously a wild exaggeration of this type. Two guys I was with - one got up and left and the other said, "Yeah we're friends, but if I have to f*** him over on a deal tomorrow I'm gonna do it, and he's gonna do it to me." Bateman is literal with it. He has a problem with somebody, he eliminates the problem by killing them.'

Born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, but spending his childhood in such far flung places as Portugal and Reading, Bale was acting by the age of ten, his debut in a West End play called The Nerd, with Rowan Atkinson. Showbiz was in the blood - his sister is a theatre director, his mother a dancer, while his grandfathers were, respectively, a member of the Magic Circle and a stand-in for John Wayne. But, perversely, his desire to perform came from having an unconventional father (a commercial pilot). 'The most rebellious thing I could have done with him would be to have a nine to five job,' says Bale.