Other actors who could've played Patrick Bateman...

JASON BATEMAN IS PATRICK BATEMAN.

Since I suspect that Tom Cruise is about one closet full of corpses* from actually being Patrick Bateman in real life... well, I still think he'd have sucked in the role. Being an empty sociopath in real life doesnt mean you can play one in n a movie, not with Cruise's level of skill anyway.


* Of course if Cruise as totally did have a closet full of corpses to deal with... he has people for that.

James Spader comes to mind first

If this movie was adapted and directed by Hal Hartley instead and he cast his usual players (all NY/East Coast alums) I think we would have gotten a more sublime interpretation of the story.

The current version works well but it's been reduced and regurgitated for all the wrong reasons just like Goodfellas and Full Metal Jacket have.

Bale was perfect, in my opinion. But Tom Cruise might've worked, but I wonder about his range sometimes. Just seems Cruise is really good at playing Cruise a lot of the time. McConaughey has been pretty great is some roles, so I can see that being pretty cool. Arnold, just no...but I'd be curious to see it. Daniel Day Lewis dedicates himself to his roles so much, I'm sure it would've been spooky and great. I'm thinking Sam Rockwell because I feel like I love everything he's in and has the range to pull it off.

EDIT: Now that I'm thinking a bit deeper about it, Edward Norton would be great too!... How about Nicolas Cage... Billy Bob Thornton... Jake Gyllenhaal? I know they probably don't all line up age wise, but those really make me want to see this in an alternate universe!!

Daniel Day-Lewis has the look and the range, but he was too old for the role. Johnny Depp just isn't menacing enough. Ed Norton maybe? He was pretty menacing in American History X. Phillip Seymour Hoffman had tremendous range, but his tubby red-headed ass never could have played one of those dark haired wall street wolves (and a point of the movie was all of those Wall Street predators looked alike)

Unlike OP, I think McConaughey could have played the role (although not as well as Bale). He has more range than he is given credit for. In the late 1990s, he had started down his dumb romcom path and that is probably why he wasn't even considered for this movie, but his performance as a psychopath in 2011's Killer Joe was top-notch, and I have no reason to think he couldn't have done that in 1999/2000 when American Psycho was made.

Watch Killer Joe and you will see that McConaughey is probably the only actor that could have played Patrick Bateman almost as well as Bale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Joe_(film)

Tilda Swinton

Hugh Grant
Kevin Bacon

Michael Fassbender (was unkown at the time and at 24 maybe a bit young.)