Bale In Trouble As He Piles On Weight

AMERICAN PSYCHO star Christian Bale was so determined to beef up to play Batman just six weeks after playing an emaciated machine operator in THE MACHINIST he made himself sick by gorging on pizza and ice-cream.

The actor lost a third of his body weight for The Machinist and only had a few weeks to bulk up to impress producers as a potential Caped Crusader in Batman Begins.

He recalls, "It was only about six weeks between finishing The Machinist and doing the screen test for Batman Begins.

"The director, Chris Nolan, asked me to try and put on as much weight as I could because he would find it very difficult to convince the studio to cast me if I was a beanpole.

"In doing so I overdid it because I was enjoying gorging. I was ignoring advice about taking it slowly because my stomach had shrunk, and I should just go with soups. I was straight into pizza and ice-cream and eating five meals in a sitting.

"My stomach expanded really quickly. I got very sick during that time but I enjoyed getting sick. I didn't mind it at all. In that short amount of time I did actually go from 121 (pounds) right back up to 180 (pounds) which is way too fast so that resulted in some doctor visits to get things sorted out.