Christian Bale wears a Rolex Day-Date

Adam McKay's Vice (2018) is the Dick Cheney biopic, with Christian Bale buried under prosthetics and the forty-odd pounds he put on for the part, playing Cheney from a flunked-out Yale student to the most powerful vice president the country has had. The gold watch on his wrist is not a costume invention. The real Dick Cheney wore a yellow gold Rolex Day-Date, the first U.S. vice president known to do so, and he was photographed in it for years, including on the morning of September 11. The film simply put the right watch on the right man.

The Day-Date is Rolex's president's watch, literally. It spells the day out across the top of the dial and shows the date at three, sits on a solid-gold President bracelet, and has been worn by one American leader after another since the 1950s. Cheney's is the 36mm yellow gold version with a champagne dial, the same watch the real man wore. The film never gives it a close-up.