Christian Bale's Dick Cheney revealed in first trailer for Vice

Mentioning Christian Bale’s weight loss and gain in relation to his upcoming films is a bit of a cliché, but it’s a necessary one considering just how far he goes to take on the physical characteristics of his subjects. Rather than becoming emaciated or musclebound, for Adam McKay's upcoming political comedy-drama, Vice, Bale goes further.

To transform into Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States, the actor puts on even more weight than he did for American Hustle, shaving his head and bleaching his eyebrows. Many regard the influential Republican to be the most powerful Vice President in US history.

Bale worked with director Adam McKay on The Big Short, where the actor played the social awkward but canny hedge fund manager Michael Burry (and managed to fit in some heavy metal drumming as well). If the first trailer for Vice is anything to go by, the latest collaboration will similarly mould complicated yet crucial events in recent history into a slick, witty drama.

Bale aside, the film’s prominent cast features Amy Adams as Cheney’s wife Lynne, Steve Carell as politician Donald Rumsfeld and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush. Rockwell is relatively fresh off receiving the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of racist policeman Jason Dixon in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – and given the trailer’s focus on the Vice Presidential stage in Cheney’s career, we should be seeing a fair bit of Rockwell’s take on ‘Dubya’.

Vice arrives in UK cinemas on 25 January 2019. Viewers might well find this examination of Cheney’s quiet, shadowy power to be a strangely nostalgic treat in comparison to current political brashness operating off-screen. As an earlier teaser attested: ‘some vices are more dangerous than others’.