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Christian Bale is back in shape after piling on pounds to play Dick Cheney

Ben Arnold
·Contributor

Christian Bale became Dick Cheney for Backseat (Credit: Rex)

Christian Bale is back in tip top shape after stacking on the kilos to play Dick Cheney in a new biopic movie Backseat.

The British actor was spotted signing autographs for fans at Miami International Airport yesterday.

Last year, the actor appeared at a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival for the movie Hostiles, with a shaven head and carrying some considerable extra timber.

Asked what kind of weight gain regime he’d been following, he simply said: “I’ve just been eating a lot of pies.”

Bale plays the former vice president among a star-studded cast for the Adam McKay-directed movie, which will explore the administration of 43rd US president George W. Bush.

Amy Adams plays his wife Lynne Cheney, with Steve Carell as former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Pullman as Nelson Rockefeller, Tyler Perry as former secretary of state Colin Powell and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush.

The movie, also written by McKay, who’s know for making the Anchorman movies along with the Oscar-nominated The Big Short, will tell the story of how Cheney became one of the most powerful and influential vice presidents in US history.

As any movie fan will know, it’s not the first time that Bale has radically altered his appearance for a film role.

(Credit: Rex/Shutterstock)
(Credit: Rex/Shutterstock)

Even for his breakthrough as a child actor in Empire of the Sun in 1987, Bale was drawn and gaunt as a schoolboy caught up in the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in World War II.

But memorably, he lost a stunning 63 pounds to play insomniac Trevor Reznik in The Machinist, and gained 100 pounds to play Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

He then slimmed down yet again to play boxing trainer Dicky Eklund in The Fighter, before stacking it on for American Hustle.

Backseat is due out later this year, with Bale next up in voicing Bagheera in Andy Serkis’s Mowgli, out on October 19.

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