Tom Cruise was the inspiration for Christian Bale's frightening portrayal of a bloodthirsty maniac in American Psycho, according to the movie's director Mary Harron.
The Dark Knight actor took on the role of Patrick Bateman in the 2000 thriller, playing a wealthy young investment banker who leads a double life as a vicious multiple murderer.
Director Harron has revealed that Bale based the character's smarmy persona on Cruise after seeing the Hollywood superstar give an interview on TV.
She tells BlackBook magazine, "We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave.
"And then one day he called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy."
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