Trivia for
American Psycho (2000) More at IMDbPro »

• Initial casting choices were Leonardo DiCaprio as Patrick Bateman, James Woods as Donald Kimball and Cameron Diaz as Evelyn Williams. Oliver Stone was set to direct.
  
  
• When during a very early stage in preproduction Leonardo DiCaprio expressed interest in playing the lead, production company Lions Gate issued a press release that DiCaprio would star in the movie. Previously attached director Mary Harron walked off the project, because she had not been consulted about this decision and had wanted Christian Bale to play Patrick Bateman. Oliver Stone became involved to direct, creating ever more media frenzy, which also concentrated on the now sky-rocketing budget of the movie. When both DiCaprio (whose interest in this project had been grossly overstated) and Stone dropped the project, Harron and Bale returned to the movie.
  
  
• Edward Norton was offered the part of Bateman but turned it down.
  
  
• Bateman excuses himself from a conversation by claiming he has an appointment with "Cliff Huxtable". This was Bill Cosby's character's name in "The Cosby Show" (1984).
  
  
• Patrick Bateman works at the same firm as Sherman McCoy in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990): Pierce and Pierce.
  
  
• Stars Christian Bale and Willem Dafoe have both played Jesus in previous films: Bale in Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999) (TV) and Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
  
  
• The movie appearing on Bateman's TV while he's working out at home is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
  
  
• Guinevere Turner, who plays Patrick's friend "Elizabeth" (in the scene with Christie the call girl), also wrote the film's screenplay.
  
  
• All of the business cards read "Vice President".
  
  
• The first porn movie Bateman is watching is White Angel (1998).
  
  
• Brad Pitt was once attached to star, with David Cronenberg directing and Bret Easton Ellis himself writing the script.
  
  
• The events that Bateman mentions in the phone message to his lawyer are events that transpired in the book by Bret Easton Ellis, but not in the film.
  
  
• In the DVD commentary, Mary Harron says that during the first shower scene with Patrick Bateman, all of the women on set gathered around to watch Christian Bale wash himself.
  
  
• Two scenes featured unexpected improvisation by Christian Bale. When Bateman is jumping rope, he starts to skip and cross his jump rope as a schoolgirl would. Bale surprised director Mary Harron even more by starting to dance as Bateman was preparing to kill Paul Allen. That time, she says in interviews and the commentary, she collapsed with laughter.
  
  
• To block the three-way sex scene with two prostitutes, Mary Harron and Christian Bale watched x-rated tapes. In her commentary, Herron says Bale made stick-figure drawings of the positions he thought would work best.
  
  
• In each scene with Detective Donald Kimble (Willem Defoe), Mary Harron asked Defoe to portray his character three different ways: 1) Kimble knew Patrick Bateman killed Paul Allen, 2) Kimble didn't know Bateman killed Allen, and 3) Kimble wasn't sure if Bateman killed Allen. Harron would then edit the takes together, giving the audience an unsure vibe of what Detective Kimble thought of Bateman.
  
  
• The only part of the movie that author Bret Easton Ellis didn't like was Bateman's moonwalk during Paul Allen's murder-scene.
  
  
• A sign reading "This is not an exit" is shown in the closing scene. These are the last words of the novel.
  
  
• The scene in which Patrick and Courtney are in bed (when she asks him if he'll call her before Easter) is taken from Ellis' first novel "Less Than Zero". The conversation between Clay and Blair in that novel is almost identical to the one in the film (Easter has been substituted for Christmas). Although in the book “American Psycho”, Courtney (while lying in bed) does ask Patrick if he will call her before thanksgiving.
  
  
• According to the DVD commentary by Mary Harron, the film is set in 1987. This is also confirmed when Patrick is briefly seen reading Zagat's Survey: 1987. And Reagan's speech at the end of the film was given on March 4, 1987.
  
  
• The two large lithographs (posters) in Bateman's apartment are part of a series called "Men in the Cities" by Robert Longo.
  
  
• The year in which the film is set can also be told from Ronald Reagan's speech in the final scene, which he gave on March 4 1987.
  
  
• In the scene with the prostitute Chrissie, Bateman's friend mentions their mutual acquaintance "Alison Poole". Alison Poole is the narrator and main character of the novel "Story of My Life" by Jay McInerney, a contemporaneous peer author to Bret Easton Ellis.
  
  
• The scene in which Patrick Bateman yells at the Asian woman at the laundromat was filmed at a small cleaners on Jarvis street in Toronto, Canada. Much of the building scenes (his escape near the finale for example) was filmed in the financial district downtown.
  
  
• Inspired by Mario Bava's Il rosso segno della follia (1970), the main cast watched the film before shooting began.
  
  
• At one point considered for the possibility of a TV show on NBC, starring Kevin Dillon. However due to ownership, the film was eventually made. This was later squeezed into an in joke on "Entourage" (2004), starring Kevin Dillon.
  
  

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