Glen Powell’s Patrick Bateman Impression in ‘Hit Man’ Is Eerily Accurate

Hit Man—the new Netflix movie about an undercover cop who pretends to be a hit man—features Glen Powell flaunting a wide array of fun voices, characters, and costumes. But there’s one killer disguise where Powell really get to flex: an impression of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the script with Powell, Hit Man is loosely based on the true story of Gary Johnson, an undercover cop whose sting operations as a fake hit man led to over 70 arrests in murder-for-hire cases. The real Gary Johnson really would dress up with wigs, sunglasses, and costumes to meet with “clients”—though he didn’t quite to the lengths that Powell’s character goes to in the film. Hair and make-up department heads Tara Cooper and Ally Vickers, alongside costume designer Juliana Hoffpauir, worked closely with Linklater and Powell to create various assassin alter-egos for Gary. And one of those hit men, dubbed “X” by the production team, is clearly inspired by the fictional, buttoned-up serial killer played by Christian Bale in American Psycho: Patrick Bateman.

Directed by Mary Harron in 2000, and considered one of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time, American Psycho follows the slow descent of a wealthy, 1980s New York City banker—Patrick Bateman—into madness. Bale’s now-iconic portrayal of Bateman consisted of unhinged smiles, blank stares, and an unsettlingly bubbly voice that never matched his deadened eyes. (Bale once famously said he based the performance off of a Tom Cruise appearance on The Late Show.) And that’s exactly what Powell emulates when Gary goes to meet a client in a hotel room.

First, we watch as Powell slicks back his hair and pops in brown contacts. Dressed in Bateman’s instantly-recognizable suit, Powell imitates Bale’s stiff gait as he approaches the room. Once he side, he pontificates on the best ways to make a murder look like a suicide in a spot-on impression of that distinctive Patrick Bateman voice. The entire thing is hilarious—and impressive. He even does the creepy Patrick Bateman smile and head tilt!

“I give Glen a lot of credit,” Richard Linklater said in a recent interview with Decider, when asked about coming up with the Patrick Bateman disguise. “He really ran with it. It’s funny—it’s all fake. It’s all myth. We’re making this up for what the clients believe. You couldn’t really go too over the top. Gary’s thinking, ‘What will they think a hit man looks like?’ You’re already into someone’s belief. As crazy as it got at times, I found that you couldn’t go over the top.”

In a separate interview for the Hit Man press notes, Powell himself said of the disguises: “Each of these characters had to be absolutely unique and defining. But at the end of the day, we had to be able to use tools and techniques that Gary Johnson could actually hide behind—homemade little tactics like putting cotton in your cheek to change the shape of your face or putting things up your nose to make your nose wider. It’s amazing how small, little changes actually changed the entire way you perceive a face.”

Or, as Linklater put it to Decider, “Glen definitely went off the deep end.” And we love him for it.