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Axe-Sharp Satire: Mary Harron reflects on 25 years of American Psycho’s heartless humor

To celebrate 25 years of American Psycho’s bone-deep impact, writer-director Mary Harron chats with Mia Lee Vicino about women’s retroactive embrace of the film on Letterboxd, Christian Bale’s physical comedy prowess and why Patrick Bateman is a total dork.

Fresh off acclaim from film festivals including Cannes and Sundance for 1996’s I Shot Andy Warhol —which tells the story of radical feminist Valeria Solanas’s attempted assassination of the iconic artist—Harron had her heart set on adapting Ellis’s book with a pre- Batman Begins Christian Bale as the axe-wielding yuppie. The latter two were actually hired, but after famed feminist Gloria Steinem begged the young star not to take the role so as not to corrupt his legion of teen girl fans—according to Eric Saks’ Blu-ray special feature —the casting fell through (DiCaprio and Scorsese, who was also considered to direct American Psycho, would later go on to satirize finance bros in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street). Other parts of the book that the director was sorry to cut: an argument with McDermott about the brittleness of thin crust pizza, and Bateman and his girlfriend Evelyn’s (Reese Witherspoon) “romantic” getaway to the Hamptons, where the former attempts to microwave a jellyfish—Harron wanted to shoot it in soft focus like a “mad J.

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