Christian Bale recalls the time Donald Trump ‘Thought I was Bruce Wayne’

It's story time, kids, gather round! The year was 1992, and I was 11-years-old when I "met" Donald Trump. My father and I had stopped off in Trump Tower for some reason or another, and I'd decided to visit the lobby gift shop in my effort to kill some time. While riffling through the candy counter, Trump entered the shop, a determined look on his face as he made a beeline for the book counter. Without hesitation, Trump lifted a sealed copy of Madonna's Sex book from the bottom shelf, and tore into its protective silver foil, a mask to keep the novel's risque content from minors. While crumpling up the foil and tossing it to the floor, Trump scanned the book's pages for the centerfold toward the middle of the book. After ogling the nude photos of Madonna for a moment, he looked up from the salacious spread and said to no one at all, "Nice." He then tucked the book underneath his finely-coated arm and left – the foil still on the floor and slowly warping as it made a feeble attempt to regain its original shape.

Why am I even bringing this up? For starters, I think it's a fun story, and second, it was all a clever setup for the subject of this article. Recently while touring a press line for Adam McKay's VICE, in which Christian Bale plays former Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES actor recalled the time he met Donald Trump … and how Trump behaved as if Bale were actually the billionaire genius Bruce Wayne.

According to Bale, he met Trump back in 2011 while filming a scene for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES inside Trump Tower. With a chuckle in his voice, Bale told Variety “I met him, one time. We were filming on Batman in Trump Tower and he said, come on up to the office.” Bale continued, laughing to himself at Trump's curious case of mistaken identity. “I think he thought I was Bruce Wayne, because I was dressed as Bruce Wayne. So he talked to me like I was Bruce Wayne and I just went along with it, really. It was quite entertaining. I had no idea at the time that he would think about running for president.” Then, before moving on to the next interview, Bale added, “And this story [Vice], you know, is part of how we got to be here with that… ‘individual number one’ being president.”

You can watch Bale talk to Variety about the encounter below:

In addition to speaking about his time with Donald Trump, Bale dished on his latest transformative role by sharing with Variety that he consulted a nutritionist for the part, mostly because the actor is "starting to feel his mortality." Bale then explained, “I did decide, you know what, I might die, so maybe I should go to see someone who actually knows what they’re talking about instead of just winging it, which is what I’ve always done.”

You can catch Bale in all of his Cheney glory, alongside Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Jesse Plemons and Alison Pill when VICE campaigns in theaters beginning on December 25th.