Remember how Tobey Maguire beefed up for Spider-Man and starved himself for Seabiscuit? Actor Christian Bale is another such dedicated (some might say deranged) thespian. He slimmed down dramatically — losing 63 pounds — for his new indie film, The Machinist (opening Friday). We're talkin' Lara Flynn Boyle skinny, kids. It ain't pretty.
Bale plays Trevor Reznik, a paranoid, sleep-deprived factory worker who, in fact, hasn't slept in a year because of a secret buried deep in his psyche. This, we are meant to understand, is a tortured soul, and he wanted to look the part for the sake of verisimilitude. "I lost about a third of my body weight," Bale reveals. "I didn't really see how else to do it.
"There are parts where your appearance really doesn't matter, and there are some where it's a very essential part of the character," he explains. "Trevor is in this ridiculously crazy downward spiral emotionally,
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