Christian Bale says Dick Cheney is a much richer film character than Trump
Christian Bale has said Dick Cheney made for a much richer movie character than Donald Trump ever could because he exercised his massive power “in the shadows”.
Speaking at the Berlin film festival where his Oscarnominated movie Vice is screening out of competition, the Welsh actor said the former US vice-president had been “phenomenally pivotal for the last few decades in America and global situations in politics”. “Even though he might have led to this era, he’s entirely different from Trump in the way that Cheney was always terrible at retail politics and didn’t like it at all. With Trump it seems to be the only thing he likes,” he said.
“Cheney understood the power of silence... Trump can’t be accused of that. He enjoyed knowing that true power was being in the shadows.”
Bale, who gained more than 18 kg to play Cheney, said he couldn’t imagine making the effort it would take to embody the current occupant of the White House because he found his character uninteresting.
“I think there’d be far better people playing Trump, right. You’ve probably seen some pretty good impersonations of him,” he said. “But remember those books For Dummies? You’d start with that, wouldn’t you? Dictatorship for Dummies,” Bale said.
The actor said he had difficulty imagining himself as Cheney at first, but he was drawn to his contradictions.
“In terms of actual consequences of choices made and everything and power, (Cheney was) far more powerful and terrifying than any other character I’ve ever come close to playing,” he said.
Vice is nominated for eight Academy Awards including best picture, best actor and best director, to be announced on February 24.