Bale based 'American Psycho' on Cruise

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (R). The actor reportedly drew inspiration for his portrayal of Bateman from watching Tom Cruise (L) on a chat show. Photos / Supplied

The director of the 2000 movie American Psycho, has revealed that Tom Cruise was the inspiration for Christian Bale's portrayal of the lead character.

Mary Harron told Black Book magazine that she and Bale - who played the film's protagonist Patrick Bateman - talked about how "Martian-like" 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 [Bale] 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," Harron said.

In a 2000 interview with Barnes&Noble.com, Bale said he believed the author of American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, included excruciatingly detailed violence in his book to highlight the fact that Bateman's "obsession with details" was the source of his insanity.

"That's what I see about Bateman - his fixation on minutiae, and absolutely needing to get an answer for every little tiny thing, even though all the things he's interested in are completely shallow," Bale said.

- NZ HERALD STAFF