Christian Bale In Talks To Play Dick Cheney In Adam McKay’s Biopic

Christian Bale is set to tackle the controversial role of former vice president Dick Cheney in the upcoming biopic written and directed by Adam McKay. The untitled film is scheduled to go into production early next year, and will be McKay’s newest project since his last film The Big Short, which earned him three Oscar nominations.

McKay reportedly had to work rather hard to get Bale, 43, to portray Cheney, 76. McKay apparently saw the Welsh-born actor as the perfect man to play the polarizing politician and millionaire businessman.

Christian Bale To Possibly Star As Dick Cheney In Biopic

The biopic will examine Cheney’s rise through the American political system during his four decades in office. Cheney was vice president from 2001 to 2009, under president George W. Bush. Many considered Cheney the most powerful vice president in U.S. history, though he was also the least popular. During his service, he accidentally shot a man in the face, and left the office in 2009 with an approval rating of 13% — the lowest in history.

Sources say that Steve Carell and Amy Adams are also in talks to star in the biopic for Paramount. Carell would portray Cheney’s close political pal, Donald Rumsfeld, and Adams would play Cheney’s wife, Lynne Cheney.

This would mark the third time Bale and Adams have worked together. They previously co-starred in American Hustle and The Fighter, for which Bale won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The biopic will also be a reunion for Bale, Carell and McKay, who all worked together on The Big Short, an award-winning film about the 2008 financial collapse.

McKay had won an Oscar for that film, which he adopted to screenplay from Michael Lewis’ bestselling book of the same name.

Producers for the upcoming biopic include Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick.