As a successful actor, Justin Theroux doesn’t need to carry around a business card. But 25 years ago, he was exchanging cards across a table in a conference room at Pierce & Pierce, a Wall Street investment firm that employed Timothy Bryce and his murderous co-worker, Patrick Bateman. American Psycho, which stars Christian Bale as a sociopathic yuppie, was one of Theroux’s first major roles, though the now-iconic scene did not give him an appreciation for watermarks and subtle off-white coloring.
“When we did that scene, I found it hilarious,” Theroux says. “The seriousness and the tone with which we played it and the slow burn on Christian at the end, where he’s just sweating mortar shells. It was really funny.”
The scene is an encapsulation of what makes director Mary Harron’s adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel such an enduring text of its own. A room full of essentially identical ’80s finance bros, all despicable, taking the imperceptible details of their colleagues’ business cards ultraseriously and having borderline panic attacks about the implications of these status symbols. Bryce, Theroux’s character and the closest thing Bateman has to a friend, might not have murdered women, but he was wearing the same suits, making the same offhand racist and sexist remarks, enjoying an ill-gotten life of luxury, and freaking out at the guys who were also trying to do coke in the next stall over. (“Sorry dude. Steroids.”) In other words, Bryce is representative of the wealth-obsessed toxic masculinity that ruled the ’80s setting of the 2000 film — and with a few aesthetic tweaks, still rules today.
Have you ever carried around a business card? Did that scene in American Psycho give you a new appreciation for their finer details?
No, I’ve never had a business card. It was very funny while we were shooting it. Mary really made everyone take their time, and I remember I think she sent us all to a nail salon to get our nails done: “I’m gonna be seeing everyone’s fingernails in extreme close-up, so please be manicured.”
Where was your career at the time of shooting American Psycho? How did you get involved?
It was early in my career when things were starting to happen a little bit. I had done I Shot Andy Warhol with Mary in a small part playing the leader of this group called Up Against the Wall Motherfucker. Then I found out she was adapting American Psycho. It was around the same time I was shooting Mulholland Drive. I was excited — and everyone was a little nervous because the book was so graphic. No one quite knew how would depict a lot of the violence in it.
What were you doing in ’87, when the film is set?
In ’87, I was at a very progressive boarding school in Massachusetts, so I was about as far as you get from Wall Street. I was headed to New York, though.
Why was 30-year-old Justin such a good Wall Street yuppie?
I wasn’t. None of us were. Mary was pretty clear that it was gonna be satire, and at the time I probably didn’t even really know what that meant — how that was gonna be achieved. Is this a horror movie? Is this a psychological thriller? The tone of it was the big question, and Mary had done only one movie before, sort of a straight-up biopic.
She did get a very good group of actors to play all the parts. Obviously Christian, but also everyone would be filling out those roles. I remember we did a little research hanging out with Wall Street types, and they’re almost more familiar now than they were then, what has sort of come to be the finance bro. I was certainly not anywhere near that world at the time.
Once you started filming, what was the vibe like? Did it feel like you were making a comedy, a horror movie, or something else entirely?
With any movie, you don’t really know what the tone is until you see it put together with music and whatever, but I remember seeing the sets and they were so beautifully stark and odd and very of the genre — very of the ’80s. Black-and-white angular lines, those restaurants with chintz plates smashed on the walls, and the suits we were all wearing. I think they were all brought out of warehouses of designers of the time. The sets were bizarre because they’re spaces that none of us has ever lived in. The giant loft spaces with spare furniture. It reminded me of that old Maxell cassettes commercial with the guy getting his hair and tie blown back by the speaker in front of him.
Rewatching this the other day, I felt Bryce looks older than you do today, 25 years later. Do you think there’s anything to that? Is it the ’80s stylings or the nature of Wall Street — or am I just flattering you?
I’ll take the compliment, but I think it’s the styling. I was looking at an old Christopher Cross poster the other day and it was him and a woman sitting on a stool. They look like they’re in their 50s. The model looks like someone’s mom, but she’s probably 24. It’s that weird hairdo people get and then keep their entire lives.
Part of the plot relies on how interchangeable these Wall Street types are. Characters constantly mistake one suit for another. Was there a balance between making Bryce distinct versus a part of the crowd?
They were all different planets but in the same orbit. The business-card scene speaks volumes. All the cards are identical, basically, yet they’re picking up the finer details of what each gentleman’s card looks like. It’s a distinction without a difference.
Do you think of Bryce as a better person than Patrick Bateman? He’s not a psychopathic murderer (as far as we know), but he certainly seems comfortable around one and with this lifestyle.
I don’t think he’s better at all. They’re all equally awful. Patrick’s psychosis is a metaphor for corporate culture at large, so they’re all kind of the same person; we’re just seeing it from his POV. He’s not a murderer, but I don’t know. They’re all the same bullshit shade of gray, and none of them is very interesting. Those guys are all hard-charging. They probably read Lee Iacocca’s book and are stags at the glen. Fixtures of a kind of ’80s nightlife — the kind of people who would turn up at nightclubs and then bitch about the weirdos but still want access to the same nightclubs.
I remember being at a Halloween party once and some Patrick Bateman guy was like, ‘Holy shit, bro, you were in that! Wanna take a picture with me?’ I thought it was so gross.
Does American Psycho hold a special place in your filmography?
Absolutely. It’s a New York film even though, of course, we shot the majority of it in Toronto. It’s just one of those special films at a special moment in time that I’m very proud of. It’s of course being memed to death, but I like that. I like that it has a place in culture and made an interesting comment on that culture.
The film’s vision of toxic masculinity has always felt relevant, but has the way people regard characters like Bateman changed over time?
There are a couple of movies in the same vein, like Wall Street with Gordon Gekko or Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. These are all technically villains, and the thing I find odd is around ten or maybe 12 years ago, I started seeing people going as Patrick Bateman for Halloween. Getting an axe and a clear trenchcoat. In bro culture, he became sort of a hero, and I find that deeply disturbing. I remember being at a Halloween party once and some Patrick Bateman guy was like, “Holy shit, bro, you were in that! Wanna take a picture with me?” I thought it was so gross, but I could tell by the way he was acting that he probably was a finance bro and admired Patrick in whatever dumb way. Same thing with Gordon Gekko, the “Greed is good” guy. You can see it in, like, Donald Trump Jr. He’s a strain of the same DNA.
It’s as relevant today, just a shift in form. The guy might be wearing a baseball hat or Lululemon. There are still business schools turning out guys who think greed is good and who worship at the altar of capitalism and don’t have any moral qualms. I can spot those guys a mile away walking around the West Village or Wall Street — but they’re not as confined to the Financial District or the Upper East Side as they used to be.
Mary Harron, at the time, was one of the relatively few women who had directed a horror film. Do you think it made a difference having a woman behind a camera for a story about toxic masculinity?
Absolutely. That was a worry for this movie: “Is this gonna fetishize violence toward women?” It would be a very different movie without her. Mary knew exactly where the line in the sand was in terms of violence and whose POV to be in when you’re tiptoeing up to that line. I remember her talking to Cara Seymour, a wonderful English actress. Mary was shooting the scene where she’s getting murdered when Patrick drops the chain saw. I remember her being extremely touched by that performance: “She’s so wonderful, your heart breaks for her.” That’s just Mary. It’s entirely possible that a male director could have had the same instinct, but I think Mary is very particular that way.
What do you think the rest of Timothy Bryce’s life was like? What would he be doing today?
I could rattle off a bunch of clichés that would probably be accurate: Eight years from retirement, he probably squeaked out a couple of kids, maybe a divorce, going to a country club, fishing occasionally; he probably got a place in Palm Springs to take winters in. These guys get on rails that they rarely get off of. I don’t think he would be at an ashram in India discovering himself.
Do you have thoughts about Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming remake?
It sounds like they’re putting together an interesting team of people and actors. I’m usually not into remakes, but once I heard who is involved, I thought that could be really good. Maybe it’s a perfect time to retell that story. Whenever you get more time away from an era, you have more perspective on it. The truth or the lies come into more relief, so it might be easier to satirize.
Final question: Do you think the food at Dorsia was worth the fuss?
No. My favorite line that I spoke was “The menu’s in braille” when Bryce has one of those big metal sheet menus. There was a time I worked at a high-end restaurant — I won’t name it — but it was sort of an ’80s throwback that had those very small portions. A smidge of jam and some foam on it. I waited tables and got some good research in. I love that in the movie, no one really eats the food. And then the food would be taken away. Presumably because we were on so much coke.
