Aaron
Eckhart is making a fabulous career for himself playing total pricks.
Witness his breakthrough performance as sociopathic ladies’ man Chad in
Neil LaBute’s “In The Company Of Men” (1997) followed by another LaBute
film, the scathing war between the sexes, “Your Friends & Neighbors”
(1998) in which Aaron gained over 30 pounds and grew a moustache rendering
him unrecognizable. There was also the unfortunate, lout of a husband
of Renee Zellweger’s, Del Sizemore, in LaBute’s “Nurse Betty” (2000) and
last year’s “Thank You For Smoking” for which he was nominated for a Golden
Globe Award for his interpretation of tobacco spokesman Nick Naylor.
Given the sheer nastiness of his characters in these movies you would wonder
why I would find this man to be so interesting and attractive but I can
assure you it’s because of his ability to make me believe that he’s a serious
shit which is the mark of a sensational thespian.
"…I
guess I like playing flawed guys 'cause it gives a place for the characters
to go."
-
Aaron Eckhart
Born March
12, 1968 in Santa Clara County, California and raised in Cupertino (CA)
England and Sydney, Australia, Aaron and his two brothers are the sons
of a computer exec father and children’s book author mother. Aaron
spent three years after high school surfing in Hawaii, skiing in France
and serving at a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
In 1994 he graduated with a film degree from Brigham Young University in
Provo, Utah. How this guy could be a Mormon and represent the characters
he has is beyond me but that’s part of what makes him versatile and fascinating.
Upon graduation from college, Aaron moved to Manhattan where he worked
as a bartender, construction worker and a waiter before tasting his first
on screen success portraying a construction worker in a beer commercial.
Not long after Aaron returned to California and started winning small parts
on television before his college friend, writer/director Neil LaBute cast
him in “In The Company Of Men”, successfully landing Aaron smack dab in
the middle of Hollywood’s radar.
The
handsome, 5’11”, blond haired, blue eyed, chiseled and dimpled Eckhart
also appeared in a recurring stint on “Frasier” and will be well remembered
for his movie roles as assistant coach Nick Crozier in “Any Given Sunday”,
Julia Roberts’ biker boyfriend George in “Erin Brockovich” (the role that
revealed his magnetic charisma), Detective Stan Krolak in “The Pledge”,
Gwyneth Paltrow’s literary sleuth lover Roland Mitchell in “Possession”,
geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes in “The Core”, Cate Blanchett’s ranch hand
lover Brake Baldwin in “The Missing”, Ben Affleck’s mysterious employer
James Rethrick in “Paycheck”, FBI agent Thomas Mackelway in “Suspect Zero”,
Helena Bonham Carter’s ex in “Conversations With Other Women” and Sgt.
Lee Blanchard in “The Black Dahlia”. Aaron also appeared in cameo
as a truck stop patron in “The Wicker Man”, his sixth film with longtime
collaborator LaBute.
In
an interview with Jeff Otto for IGN.com, Aaron was asked about how he transforms
himself into the dark, complex characters he’s known for:
Some
actors talk of bringing portions of their characters home with them, even
of slipping into them at unexpected moments. "I don't know that these characters
are so deep or so flawed that anything perceptible would happen. They're
not drinking themselves to death or anything like that. I think that what
you think about predominantly during the day will stay with you. When you're
making a movie, you have to have one foot in all the time. Subconsciously,
everything plays all the time. What else do you have to think about? You're
thinking about your character in the film 24 hours a day. What you just
did or what you're going to do. So I don't know that you can get too far
away from your character and be good at the same time…"
Make
no mistake Aaron Eckhart is as good an actor as any of his great contemporaries
(think Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle or Philip Seymour Hoffman) and probably even
better.
This
summer, Eckhart will co-star with Catherine Zeta-Jones in a romantic comedy
about two chefs entitled “No Reservations” and he’s also currently working
on the sequel to “Batman Begins” called “The Dark Knight” which is slated
for release in summer 2008. In it Aaron plays District Attorney Harvey
Dent/Two-Face who together with Gary Oldman as Lieutenant James Gordon
and Christian Bale as Batman helps to bag The Joker played by Heath Ledger.
Aaron Eckhart is simply a force to be reckoned with!
|