American Psycho Casting Director Says Austin Butler Is Too ‘Beautiful’ to Play Christian Bale’s Character in Reimagining

• The casting director of 2000’s American Psycho, Kerry Barden, is giving his thoughts on the upcoming new adaptation from Luca Guadagnino
• While Austin Butler has reportedly been cast as Patrick Bateman, Barden said he thinks Butler would be more suited for Paul Allen, played in the 2000 movie by Jared Leto
• ” … not every person has that kind of beauty,” Barden added of Butler and Leto

The casting director of American Psycho is weighing in on the upcoming Luca Guadagnino reimagining.

Guadagnino, 53, is set to direct a new take on the story first made famous on the big screen in 2000, with Christian Bale in the villainous starring role of Patrick Bateman. Both are based on author and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial 1991 novel.

In the new film, Austin Butler is set to play Bateman who, in Bale’s 1987-set version, is a charming Wall Street professional by day, and a raging murderer by night. The movie is set to be released through Lionsgate. 

But Kerry Barden, who served as the casting director on the original film, recently told The Hollywood Reporter that there is another role he thinks is more suited to Butler, 33.

“I would cast Austin in Jared [Leto]’s role because he’s that beautiful, and that’s why we cast Jared, is because he’s that beautiful,” said Barden, 55, of Leto, 53, who played Bateman’s rival (and eventual victim) Paul Allen in the 2000 film.

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He added, “Jared is certainly a great actor as well, and obviously, Austin has a lot of depth as an actor, too. But not every person has that kind of beauty.”

For the 20th anniversary of American Psycho in 2020, director Mary Harron, along with Ellis, 61, Bale, 51, and others from the film, gave an oral history published by MovieMaker.

During the conversation, Harron, 72, admitted Bale’s role almost went to another big name: Leonardo DiCaprio. But ultimately, said the director, “I thought he was wrong for it.”

“I thought Christian was better for it,” she continued of the fictional killer. “And I also thought, and I think my instinct was right on this, [DiCaprio, 50] carried enormous baggage because he had just come off Titanic and I thought you cannot take someone who has a worldwide fanbase of 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, and cast him as Patrick Bateman.”

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In director Harron’s original American Psycho, Bale’s sinister character — who may or may not be a serial killer — satirizes 1980s white-collar American culture and consumerism.

Someone else who has expressed interest in playing Bateman in the new movie? Cooper Koch.

While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles in October 2024, Koch — who played Erik Menendez in the hit Netflix show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story — said he’d be up for taking on the role.

“Luca’s doing American Psycho, so I think I can do Patrick Bateman,” the actor, 28, told THR of setting his sights on the role. “I haven’t played a serial killer yet, so I think I could do it.”