Christian Bale looked to ‘Columbo’ for inspiration for his role in ‘Amsterdam’.
The 48-year-old actor plays a one-eyed veteran-turned-doctor in David O. Russell’s upcoming murder mystery and admitted he “studied” Peter Falk’s performance as the lead character in the long series of detectives to get ideas.
When asked if he was inspired by ‘Columbo’, he explained: “Absolutely. Yes. Yes. His mannerisms! I studied him for sure.”
Christian and David spent five years carefully sketching out the story over breakfasts at various diners, and the men explained that the Oscar-winning star’s order varied dramatically depending on the other film in which I was working at a certain time.
Christian told Deadline: “I went from drinking a lot of coffee to having like 16 eggs and three bowls of rice. We took pictures of me and Dave having breakfast together and I have to say, wow, baby “.
David added, “That’s Christian. As we went through this whole movie, I had a lot of other projects that came and went, and I thought, this is what I want to do.”
The ‘Wrestler’ actor believes the pair’s discussions generated enough material for more than one film, but thinks how David shaped them into the finished film was “beautiful”.
He said, “Well, I would have made at least two movies, maybe three with everything we came up with from the beginning. There were times when I’d be in town for months and we’d meet regularly and . . .”
David chimed in, “Sometimes two or three times a week.”
Christian continued: “And then I went home for a while, and while I was gone, I have to say, he did his best work. I’d go back and it would take him a lot longer. No. David has his It’s like all these satellites of ideas pass over him. We’d talk about it, I’d go, I’d go back and see what he did with those. I’d forget, but he doesn’t forget anything and It was nice to see it all together”.
