After a year’s hiatus, Bale returned in 2004 to play Trevor Reznik, the title character in the psychological thriller The Machinist. Reznik was a chronic insomniac, tormented by a mysterious stalker. Bale devoted himself to the role to an extent he had never gone to, sacrificing his mental and physical well being to achieve Reznik’s emaciated, skeletal appearance for the sake of an authentic, natural performance. (In one scene, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character quipped, “If you were any thinner, you wouldn’t exist.”) He went without proper rest for prolonged periods, and placed himself on a crash diet that saw his weight dropping by a startling sixty pounds in a matter of months. [22] Bale wanted to lose more, but everyone from the director to his doctor forbade him (as it was, Bale only weighed a startling 120 lbs by the end of filming). He was compared to Robert De Niro, whose alternate weight-gaining regimen saw him putting on fifty-five pounds for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Bale took the Reznik role because the script “intrigued” him, [22] and it helped him cope with his depression.[19] The Machinist garnered mostly positive reviews—critics were impressed by Bale’s dedication.