Christian Bale is taking time out to thank the man who has been instrumental in him making a career in Hollywood, and that is none-other-than Leonardo DiCaprio. The Batman actor cheekily credited his cinematic success to Leonardo for turning down roles in prominent films that he has been subsequently been able to audition and get in his own kitty.

Talking to a leading magazine, Christian credited Leonardo for making his career in showbiz and said, “Look, to this day, any role that anybody gets, it's only because he's passed on it beforehand. It doesn't matter what anyone tells you. It doesn't matter how friendly you are with the directors. All those people that I've worked with multiple times, they all offered every one of those roles to him first. So, thank you, Leo, because literally, he gets to choose everything he does. And good for him, he's phenomenal."

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Christian also steered clear of the not-so-friendly competition and the fact that Leonardo gets priority preference in Hollywood and said that he has never taken it personally when casting directors pass him over for the other. He said, “No. Do you know how grateful I am to get any damn thing? I mean, I can't do what he does," Bale shared. "And he does it magnificently. But I would suspect that almost everybody of similar age to him in Hollywood owes their careers to him passing on whatever project it is.”

One significant role that Leonardo turned down but turned out to be instrumental in Christian’s career was the axe-wielding, yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in the horror film American Psycho released in 2000. However, Christian recalled that he was not paid handsomely for playing Bateman and said, “They had paid me the absolute minimum they were legally allowed to pay me. I remember one time sitting in the makeup trailer and the makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them."

He revealed that “nobody wanted me to do” the film apart from director Mary Harron, which was the reason for his lower wage. He said, “They said they would only make it if they could pay me that amount," Bale explained. "I was prepping for it when other people were playing the part. I was still prepping for it. And, you know, it moved on. I lost my mind. But I won it back.”

(Source: GQ)