LOS ANGELES—Committing to a strict age-reduction diet and infantilizing exercise regimen in preparation for the role, infamously dedicated method actor Christian Bale revealed Friday that he lost 40 years in order to portray 5-year-old composer prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the prestige historical drama Wunderkind. “I knew it would be physically taxing, and possibly even dangerous, to do something like this, but my age-regression trainers are the absolute best and saw to it that I never shed more than 10 years in a given week,” said the Oscar-winning actor and functional kindergartener who worked with speech pathologists and physical therapists to degrade his verbal and motor skills, respectively. “When I signed up to play a young Mozart, I knew I’d have to immerse myself in the role. I was able to drop the first few decades pretty quickly, actually, but I plateaued hard around 15, and those last 10 years were a bit of a slog. We’re still in production right now, but my next role sees me playing the wizard Merlin, so I’ll have to pack on another 180 years soon. Going through puberty again will be an ordeal, I’m sure, but with any luck, I’ll be legal drinking age in time for the Wunderkind wrap party.” Sources involved with production on Wunderkind said the project is dangerously over budget and will likely shut down over a lack of funding.

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