Believe it or not, Dick Cheney is not an enormous fan of the guy who publicly compared him to Satan.
Bale in an interview with Yahoo this week revealed he received a message from an unhappy Cheney after playing him in the 2018 biopic Vice. Apparently, a woman Bale knows from his son's school ran into the former vice president at a party and asked if there's anything he'd like to say to the actor, who received an Oscar nomination for the role.
"Tell him he's a dick," Cheney responded, Bale says.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
Bale explains he at first thought Cheney was just joking around, referencing the fact that he was, in fact, "a Dick" in the movie. But evidently, the former vice president wasn't kidding.
"I went, 'At least he's got a sense of humor,'" Bale said. "And she said, 'no, there was no humor to that whatsoever.'"
Of course, that's not overly surprising considering how uncharitable Vice is in its depiction of Cheney, although Bale notes that he's actually not positive that Cheney saw the movie. Depending on when this party took place, he could have just been responding to Bale's remarks about him, like when he said while accepting a Golden Globe that Satan inspired his performance, also describing Cheney as "charisma-free and reviled by everybody."
The former vice president's daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), had previously fired back at Bale over that Satan comparison, tweeting out a news article about Bale being arrested in 2008 over an alleged assault and writing, "Satan probably inspired him to do this, too."
