Dick Cheney on Christian Bale's Vice performance: "Tell him he’s a dick"

Christian Bale may have earned the love of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and a number of critics (not necessarily us, but many enjoyed it) for his turn as former vice president Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s Vice, but there’s definitely one person who won’t be slow-clapping in his direction anytime soon: former vice president Dick Cheney.

While chatting with Yahoo, the Ford v. Ferrari actor shared that he heard about Cheney’s less-than-enthusiastic response to his performance through child drop-off gossip at his son’s school. “One of the moms was at a party that [Cheney] was at, and she said, ‘Oh, I’m going to be seeing Christian tomorrow, you have anything to say to him?’” Bale recounted. “And he said, ‘Tell him he’s a dick.’” Bale initially assumed Cheney was just being cheeky. Thankfully, for those of us who are enduring fans of irony, that was not the case: “I went, ‘Oh, at least he’s got a sense of humor.’ And she said, ‘No, there was no humor to it whatsoever.’”

Bale admitted that he isn’t totally sure that Cheney even saw Vice; it’s not as if the preceding trailers gave the impression that the film would be wholly celebratory, so him skipping it isn’t totally unlikely. If he did miss it, then his ire could have nothing to do with the performance itself and everything to do with Bale thanking Satan during his acceptance speech at this year’s Golden Globes for “inspiring” his portrayal. In any case, it’s unlikely that the film could tarnish Cheney’s legacy any more than his own previous scandals, so that’s at least one silver lining he can cling to.