Christian Bale Transforms Into Dick Cheney In The Trailer For Adam McKay’s ‘Vice’

Christian Bale, the king of on-screen transformations, packed on 40 pounds to play then-Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice. He gained the weight by gorging on “lots of pie,” which honestly doesn’t sound that bad. Besides, all that delicious pie-eating will pay off if he’s again nominated for Best Supporting Actor, which happened the last time he worked with writer and director Adam McKay (who, himself, was up for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay).

Vice also stars Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Alison Pill and Lily Rabe as Mary and Liz Cheney, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell (!), and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, who tells Cheney that “you’re my vice” in the teaser trailer above. “Well, George, I’m a CEO of a large company,” Cheney responds. “And I have been Secretary of Defense. And I’ve been White House chief of staff. The vice presidency is a mostly symbolic job. However, if we came to a different understanding, I can handle the more mundane jobs: overseeing bureaucracy, military, energy, and foreign policy.” With only a moment of hesitation, Bush replies, “Yeah, right. I like that.”

And the rest is, as they say, shooting-a-guy-in-the-face history.

Vice explores the epic story about how a bureaucratic Washington insider quietly became the most powerful man in the world as Vice-President to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today.

Vice opens on December 25.