Christian Bale says he was paid 'the absolute minimum they were legally allowed to pay me' for his breakout role in 'American Psycho'

• Christian Bale was the star of the 2000 movie "American Psycho."
• Bale said he was paid the "absolute minimum" for the movie.

Christian Bale has been an actor for practically his entire life, but that doesn't mean he's always been financially comfortable that whole time.

Despite having already scored leading roles in movies like Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" and Disney's "Newsies," the studio producing Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" wasn't thrilled to have him play the lead role, psychotic yuppie banker Patrick Bateman.

Instead, Lionsgate wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play Bateman — and Bale said this affected his payout.

"They had paid me the absolute minimum they were legally allowed to pay me," Bale said in a recent interview with GQ.

"Nobody wanted me to do it except the director," Bale explained. "So they said they would only make it if they could pay me that amount. I was prepping for it when other people were playing the part. I was still prepping for it."

And to make matters worse, Bale said he was literally on the verge of living on the streets.

"I had a house that I was sharing with my dad and my sister and that was getting repossessed," he revealed. "So the first thing was: 'Holy crap. I've got to get a bit of money.'"

"I remember one time sitting in the makeup trailer and the makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them," Bale continued. "And so that was my motivation after that. Was just: 'I got to get enough that the house doesn't get repossessed.'"

The performance in "American Psycho" catapulted Bale to leading-man status. He then went on to star as Batman for a trilogy of movies and was cast in a slew of high-profile dramas, including 2010's "The Fighter" which culminated in an Oscar win.