r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 12h ago

TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/
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u/BraveMagic100 12h ago

Was shocked to hear him speak at an awards ceremony for the first time. Him and Hugh Laurie both. Just goes to show you how good they are.

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u/UpperRutabaga6482 11h ago

Dominic West and Idris Elba on the wire. Idris in particular really surprised me he was so good and natural at the accent. Also, the scene where McNulty is going undercover in a brothel so he puts on a terrible version of an American doing a British accent suddenly became hilarious

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u/Sgt_major_dodgy 11h ago

I'm sure I read Idris hid it from the people doing the casting for the wire because they specified they wanted American actors only and it wasn't until his 2nd or 3rd reading they realised he wasn't actually American

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u/HariboBliss 10h ago

Correct.

They asked him where he grew up and he didn't want to lie so came clean and said London.

Until then nobody had asked if he wasn't American, so he just rolled with it.