Christian Bale credited "Satan" for inspiring his portrayal of Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie "Vice."
While accepting the Golden Globe for best actor in a motion picture comedy or musical, Bale also thanked writer and director Adam McKay, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Big Short," for hiring him to play Cheney in the movie.
The actor joked that McKay was looking for someone "charisma-free" and therefore turned to him for the role.
"(McKay) said, 'I've got to find somebody who can be absolutely charisma-free and reviled by everybody.' So he went, 'Ah it's got to be Bale'," Bale said on stage Sunday.
He added that he's "cornering the market on charisma-free a**holes" -- the last word was bleeped out by NBC.
"Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role," he continued.
Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a daughter of the former vice president, tweeted a response to Bale in which she referenced a 2008 allegation of assault against the actor.
"Satan probably inspired him to do this, too," Cheney wrote, before linking to a 2008 article on Bale's arrest.
The article references a hotel-room incident between the actor, his mother and his sister. Bale denied the allegations at the time, describing the incident as "a deeply personal matter" and asking the media at a press conference to "respect my privacy in the matter."
British prosecutors later said there was "insufficient evidence" to charge the actor, the BBC and other UK media reported in 2008.
