One of Christian Bale's most iconic roles is banker Patrick Bateman inAmerican Psycho.In Adam McKay filmThe Big Short, Bale embodies another memorablemoney manager, but this time he'sthe antithesis of serial-killer Bateman.
"I think there were a number of Patrick Bateman-like people involved in the story (of 'The Big Short'), but certainly I wasn't playing anybody like him," said Bale at 'The Big Short's premiere last month."I was playing an absolutely genuine and brilliant man: a real person; not a satirical character at all."
Bale, in a Golden Globe-nominated performance,portraysthe idiosyncratic Michael Burry, one of the few characters inThe Big Shortwho goes by the name of the real person he's based on.
So who is thisreal Burrywho makes bankers laugh with his outrageous deals, drums along to heavy metal music in his office, works barefoot, has trouble making eye contact with peopleand is called out for having a cheap haircut?
Well, he's someone who predicted the housing market crash.
Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt go full un-hot in 'Big Short'
Here are five things to know about the real Burry, who is accurately depicted on the big screen:
He has a glass eye
Oscar winner Bale manages to make one of his eyes look glass by forcing it to belazy. In real life, Burry does have a glass eye. He got it , because he had a rare form of cancer and had to have his left eye removed before the age of two. Burry had trouble making eye contact with people, but not exactly for the reason he thought...
He realized he hadAsperger's late in life
As an adult, Burry found out the real reason he was socially awkward andobsessive: He had Asperger's Syndrome. He only discovered thiswhena child psychologist diagnosed his child with the disorder.In the movie, it's not explicitly stated that Burry hasAsperger's, but Bale does show that Burry is uncomfortable with social interactions
He studied to be a doctor
Medical school was a breeze for Burry, but he wasn't so keen on the actual practice of medicine. By the time he was a neurology resident at Stanford Hospital in 1998, he was way more focused on his investing blog that he would post on overnight. He eventually shut down his site, quit neurology and decided to become a full-time money manager. In the movie and in real life, Burry goes by "Dr. Michael Burry."
He started his own hedge fund
Burry opened Scion Capital (inspired by bookThe Scions of Shannara, which we think we rememberseeing at the character's desk in the movie) in 2000and began managing a little under $1 million. In 2004, he grew that to$600 million. He kept his investors in the loopwith regular emails (that didn't require face-to-face interaction, as Bale shows onscreen).
He predicted the housing crisis, which helped him make investors millions
Burry used atleast a billion dollars of his investors' money in credit-default swaps on sub-prime mortgage bonds.Basically, without getting into the details of what that means, he made abet against the housing market. He won: Burry made$100 million for himself and $725 million for his investors.
According to writer Michael Lewis, who got to know the real Burry for his book that inspired the movie, Bale'stake of the neurologist-turned-investor is so good, sometimes "it's just creepy," he said at theBig Shortpremiere.
