Huh? Can you explain that?

Yes, either the movie or the book. What do you find upsetting about it, MegFL?

He's made his name playing amoral, ambivalent characters, relishing the chance to flesh out the 'bad guys'. He's done it so well, he's even been slapped by a filmgoer in the street. So why is Aaron Eckhart now playing the lovable lead in a big box office, feelgood film?

Chrissy Iley
Sunday August 19, 2007

You expect Aaron Eckhart to slither on to the screen. He's good at that. He is quite a master at playing the morally ambiguous, the victim, the torturer, the also-ran. He excels in creating discomfort. You wonder that he might be extremely uncomfortable with himself. Where does he put all these edges? Where do they come from?
I remember shuddering when I saw him play Chad in Neil LaBute's debut In The Company of Men, an angry young marketing executive who flirts, seduces and dumps a deaf secretary just because he can. He masturbated on screen for LaBute's Your Friends and Neighbours while his wife had an affair. He was Julia Roberts's beardy biker lover in Erin Brockovich, Gwyneth Paltrow's wimpy lover in Possession, and last year was dazzlingly amoral as a lobbyist defending the rights of smokers in Thank You For Smoking. In that he had a particular vulpine smile. He would say something terrible and ridiculous and then beam. I read that Tony Blair inspired that grin. So it came as something of a surprise that he was to play the romantic lead in Scott Hicks's thoughtful comedy-drama No Reservations (opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones). Hicks brought us Shine and was nominated for an Oscar for his hypersensitive direction.

No Reservations is set in the high-powered, high-stressed world of the celebrity chef. Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a top chef who is driven and compulsive and whose life is worth less than her saffron sauce. Then her life suddenly changes and Eckhart as the sous chef brings passion, emotion, sweetness - not anything you'd previously associate with him. But from the moment you see him sitting in his kitchen singing along to 'Nessun Dorma' it feels right, you are charmed by him. He has a different smile, wide and beatific. It's a rock star smile. It's a confident smile. It fits his face rather than his face fitting it. It's a romantic leading man performed as exquisitely as all of the bad boys.
He is smiling again when we meet at a cooking school in Rome. A slightly more cautious smile but charming nonetheless. He is tall and lithe. His hair is a pleasant dirty blond and his eyes have an implausible twinkle. What was going on within Eckhart that made him fit so well as the romantic comedy hero?

'Hm?' he says leaning forward. 'Even when I had success playing complicated, morally ambivalent characters I got offered romantic comedy, I just didn't do them. I didn't think I had any talent in that area. I always enjoyed watching them, from Cary Grant to Robert Redford. Maybe I just grew up and thought I want to try it at least.'

For Eckhart, being unequivocally charming on screen was way outside the comfort zone. 'You know there's every reason you give yourself not to do it, to be the wallflower, to say I'm too shy, to give yourself every reason to not get the girl,' he says.

You can see this working with the arc of his own life. He's 39 and has always complained he wanted to settle down, have children, but always became claustrophobic. Now without much suffering he can actually say his girlfriend's name. 'It's Ashley.' But more of her later.

'When I did Thank You For Smoking I know people came out of the cinema and they were happy. They laughed and it made me feel happy and I felt I'll try and do that again. I hope they feel the same way about this movie.'

In 1998 when In The Company of Men came out women approached in the street and slapped him. That can't have been fun. 'No, you're right, it wasn't. But that was a long time ago. Thank You For Smoking was the first movie I felt I was - how shall I say this - nicely accepted.'

After Smoking, he did a small movie called Conversations With Other Women with Helena Bonham Carter. 'The thing is I want to do movies for adults about adults, relationship movies. I think there was a switch in me that went on. I'm not a kid any more. Yep, I want to get the girl. I don't want to be known as the bad guy.'

And was it like that in real life? Did you want to be the insider, accepted, not alienated? 'Well I've changed my life for sure, there's no doubt about it. I've quit drinking. I've quit smoking. And I don't think I was the best person when I was drinking.' As he grew up with a Mormon background, guilt was always part of the drinking. He says it made him aggressive, he got into fights. He managed to stop both by hypnosis. 'I never thought I could give up smoking. Do you know both were impossible to give up, but neither of them was hard. Right now, if you asked me which one would I rather do, I wouldn't want to do either. I smoked when I got up and I smoked when I went to bed. Now I have a cup of coffee in the mornings I feel better, cleaner, and I think I'm a friendlier person.'

Do you think alcohol was making you a morally ambivalent person? 'I think I was trying to make my way and work out my own philosophy. Drinking was a way to cover up some insecurities and I figured I didn't need it any more. I didn't use the hypnosis as therapy. It was pretty cut and dried. But I wouldn't be afraid to do that if I needed to clear something up.' He looks me in the eye so I can see his purity of intent.

'Everything really is good now... I used to drink whenever I went out. It's interesting to see how much Hollywood and that kind of Hollywood thing revolves around drinking, and I don't just mean Hollywood, it's socialising. When I was in London I stayed at the Charlotte Street Hotel. At 5.30pm at night everyone was drinking.' Eckhart would avoid all that and go over the road and eat alone in Thai Metro.

So how did your social life change? 'Dramatically. I have no reason to be out past midnight. Friends that I thought were friends, I don't associate with them. Not because I dislike them, I just have no reason to be with them.' Because drinking was the bond? 'Yes, drinking, partying, chasing, you know, all that sort of stuff.'

In the broader sense it seems Eckhart no longer has o chase. His fully fledged, filling-the-screen leading man moment has arrived and the elusive settling down thing is no longer elusive. He has been in a stable relationship for a year. 'I hope it's stable. I think we're pretty good. I think she understands me. That's something I want more in my life. We'll see what happens. I'm getting older. I want to have children. Sometimes I say to myself though, you are just not that kind of guy.' He flashes me a look of torture. He's very worried that he might not be that kind of guy.

However, it seems that insecure, fearful Eckhart has morphed into his lust-for-life screen chef character Nick. While Zeta-Jones carries the intensity, the weight of the film, what Eckhart carries for the first time in his screen life is joy. His character is, he says, exactly what women want. 'He loves to cook, he's good with children, he listens, he cares. I think that's what women want in a man.' He shifts about a bit, not sure whether that is quite yet him. What is him is to take a simple character and make it complicated. 'I got an important message from my character there that I would like to embody more in my own life. Don't be afraid to try your hardest and then let it go. Don't take anything seriously. When you do a role like this, the boyfriend role, you can still have opinions, you can still give it backbone. I think in real life I'm a bit more complicated than this character, but you can still take something from him.'

The child he's so good with is Abigail Breslin, Oscar-nominated for Little Miss Sunshine. Zeta-Jones's sister dies and she suddenly finds herself mother. The routine of a high-powered chef is not geared to having children and the movie is about learning to change. Eckhart's character provides the parental instinct.

Zeta-Jones and Eckhart trained in the kitchen of the New York celebrity chef Michael White. Zeta-Jones had to prepare sauces and pan-toss small items and Eckhart had to chop vegetables and fillet fish. They also had to try not to cut themselves with extra-sharp knives and grasp hot pot handles in a tiny, adrenalin-charged kitchen. 'In preparing for this role I thought, why would a chef devote himself to food? What is it about him that he wants to prepare food?

What made him want to play this role? 'There's something here when I do this one thing - it's so pure and it feels so good it compels me. The pains that these guys go through, it's insane. But I saw these chefs make something perfect and beautiful. They watch you eat it and it's something that's inside of them.' Eckhart's previous performances don't necessarily fill you like comfort food. If this performance were a dish he'd fill you like a cosy pumpkin ravioli.

While he was doing this movie, the tabloids delighted in rumours that he was the romantic lead off-screen as well as on for Zeta-Jones. He points out that he was accused of having an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow when they starred in Possession. The rumours went that she had a huge appetite for sex but as a Mormon he had to deny her. 'Maybe they do this to sell papers or to sell the movie. In general, my life has not been interesting to gossip papers. I'm not your big movie star, you know. Nobody follows me around. But with Catherine, yes, it was different. And some tabloid out of England said we were having an affair and her husband was jealous, all that sort of thing. Well it's just not true. People would call me up. My mum called me up and said what's going on. I had to sit my girlfriend down and say I want you to know this is false.' He looks upset by the accusations. 'My girlfriend is a good cook. She wants to move to Paris to become a pastry chef. I like to go to the market and get vegetables with her.'

Not so settled then if she's moving to Paris. 'I'd like to go to Paris with her. In the past in interviews I used to say I'm not going to say the name because we might break up. I mean, what was that about? I don't want to sound like a self-help book, but I was trying not to fear it.'

In past relationships have you been the one more loved or the one that loves more? 'This is such an egotistical answer, but I have to say I would be the one that breaks things off because I had a fear of some sort of commitment. I'm working through it though. I would hate for people to think there was just one side to me.'

Eckhart once said he thought he shouldn't do interviews because it gave his power away. He hated to be pinned down as if that made him seem less of himself, smaller. Now he seems over that. He doesn't remove imaginary eyelashes or talk about his pets as a distraction.

By contrast to his romantic lead in No Reservations, in Alan Ball's new movie, Nothing is Private, based on the book Towelhead by Alicia Erian, he plays a man who has an affair with a 13-year-old girl. 'It goes beyond anything I've ever done.' He takes a breath. 'It was hard to do, hard to do. The performances are wonderful and it's a great movie, but fun as Nick was, this was the opposite.' He's keen to keep every opportunity open and after the darkness of Nothing is Private he is doing another romantic comedy. 'It's called Travelling. It's about a grief counsellor,' he says with an ambiguous smile.

Typical of a person who doesn't enjoy being pinned down, he loves to pin down other people. He's studied body language. He's even said he employed it on a few dates. As I had read this, I was careful that my feet wouldn't point in any particular direction, I didn't want to look too open, too closed, too critical, too adoring. But too late. He tells me that when he talked about the paedophile I folded my arms and leaned forward and that's when I became guarded. And he says of himself: 'Look I'm being open. I pick up my drink. When we just talked about Nothing is Private I closed as well. But if we are going to talk about something that pleases me I lean back. It's all easy stuff. Like if someone clears their throat they might say they have a cold, but the fact is they are throat constricted because something came up that they didn't like. I use it because characters have to send universal messages,' he says with an open, easy half smile.

And what was his message in Thank You For Smoking, where he has a grin so huge it takes over the screen? 'I wanted to be welcoming,' he says sweetly. 'Jason Reitman [the director] said: "I want you to smile in this movie. You never smile in movies."' As a child his mother told him to smile more. She wanted him to show his feelings because he was often shy and didn't want anybody to know what he was feeling.

Eckhart was born in San Jose, California, where his dad worked for a computer company. But when 13, his father's job moved to England. They lived in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, and he went to school in Cobham. 'Imagine going from 85 degrees and beaches to rainy days and a pink cottage. I'd just started surfing and getting into girls... I learnt to love it though. I quickly understood that I was having an experience in life that few people had.' Then he learnt to love being displaced. 'I went to Australia, then Hawaii, then France and Switzerland.' So there's a kind of restlessness about you? 'Yes, and my parents are always moving. When I lived in England the gypsies would come to Cobham and set up the circus. I remember thinking I don't want to be in the circus, I don't like that lifestyle, it's too transient for me, too dirty, and then I joined the circus. That's the irony of life, isn't it?'

It seems like he's always been at odds with himself, both fearing and needing to settle down. Wanting to be applauded for how good he is at playing the bad boy when really he just wanted to be good.

Are you close to your parents? 'Very,' he says emphatically. He is particularly close to his mother. 'My mum knows that I'm introspective and shy. My whole filmography my mum could probably do without. But this movie she would love,' he says, pleased that he is pleasing his mother. 'She is a writer, an artist, a poet. She recently told me her first love was to be an actress, but she never did it.' Are you fulfilling her dreams? 'In a way, but it's sad that she didn't let herself go for it.'

His parents are Mormons. His father got a scholarship to Brigham Young University, and converted while there. 'My parents were raised in small towns in Montana. They went there, converted and got married, so they were an island of Mormonism in their own families. I value the church very much. As you get older you find your own way. I am in the process of finding my own way.'

How would you classify your religion? 'I would say universal law is my religion. Being good to people and also knowing how the world works.' You mean reap what you sow kind of stuff? 'Kind of,' he says, pulling a face. 'But I would like to think of it all in a less punishing literal sense. I've always found this a bit difficult. I've told my mum this. There is a darker side of religion. The punishment issue. The hellfire and brimstone. People concentrate on that more than they concentrate on the joy. Kids get scared. That's what they remember. Not the Sermon on the Mount.'

I think it's much easier to be attracted to the dark scary stuff, and people are afraid of the light. 'That's interesting,' he says. 'Afraid of the light. I think that's true.' Is it so ridiculous a metaphor to say that you are afraid of the light, that that is why you gravitated towards the dark scary characters? 'I think that might be true.' He ponders a position of fearlessness and lightness. His face has a new smile, a quizzical one. Just a little ambiguous, it's the face that his mother must have told him was impenetrable - you'd never know what he was really thinking. But then he widens it to his less complicated, happy smile. And his handshake goodbye is warm, solid and heartfelt.

The Dark Knight Two-Face Toy Revealed

Dark Horizons has posted a first look at photos of the Two-Face figure for The Dark Knight. Aaron Eckhart plays the villain (AKA Harvey Dent) in the Christopher Nolan sequel coming to theaters on July 18. Although a bit blurry, the photos of the toy were apparently taken at a restricted press event at this week's Toy Fair in New York.

Exclusive Interview: Aaron Eckhart for "The Dark Knight"
By Paul Fischer

Aaron Eckhart is no stranger in playing morally suspect characters, but none comes even close to his dual roles of ambitious District Attorney Harvey Dent and the vindictive Two Face, in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

Off screen, Eckhart is unpretentious, charming and says he's just grateful to be in the movie, despite the buzz he's receiving for his performance. He talked to Paul Fischer in this exclusive interview.

Question: Your thinking behind saying yes to a movie like this. I think the last time we spoke you had already started shooting it, or maybe you had finished, I can't remember, and I think one of the things you were saying is that part of your thinking is, you know, given a career, what is good? Is it a good career move? Is that something you consciously think about when you take on a big movie like this?

Eckhart: Well, you know, I'm sure that I thought about it, but mostly the fact that Chris [Nolan] is directing it. I don't know, I'm trying to think how I could have said no.

Question: If it had been some other director, I assume. Or some director that you didn't really trust.

Eckhart: Yeah, then it's a whole different ball game. But coming into it, having Chris directing it, having Christian [Bale], Heath [Ledger] playing the Joker, and Gary Oldman and Maggie [Gyllenhaal] and Michael Caine and everybody, then having read the script. Chris called me to his office, and said, "Will you come in?" We had a chat, and a cup of tea, talked about everything but movies, or but Batman. Then he says, "You know, I'm doing the second Batman and we got this part and maybe you want to read the script." I was like, "Well, give it to me." He says, "I'll have a guy come over to your house and give it to you." So he did, and I read it, and I was like looking at my part and reading this thing and going, "Oh my Gosh!" Because I thought I was just going to have a little part, you know, a throwaway part, because Heath was in it and everything. The script was so beautiful, so dense and complex, and so many characters intertwined, and so many dynamics, psychologically, social, personal, political, moral, ethical. It was so big, and I thought, Wow! So the way, to answer that question, I feel lucky to be in the film. I certainly feel lucky now to be in the film, being part of what I think is one of the strongest Batmans, having one of the greatest characters in cinematic bad guy history, which is Heath playing the joker. To have watched him do it, to have been a part of it, you know, I think is very special, and it's an honor for me. And to be a member of Chris's cast, and to have worked with Gary. So, I don't know if I ever, even knowing that Chris was directing it, it didn't turn my mind to turn it down. The question was, How am I going to be good in it? You know, how am I going to, you know, I have to really prepare and try to be good with Gary and with Christian and Maggie and Heath. Those were more my concerns.

Question: What were the challenges of playing a character so morally ambiguous as this character is?

Eckhart: Well, I sort of made a name on it, you know, it's in my lexicon, but he is complex. First of all, I really appreciate that Chris brought Harvey Dent into the movie, so we get to know Harvey as an altruistic, justice minded, Gotham-loving citizen who was, is the DA of Gotham, but he was also internal affairs, so he's a ball buster, you know, he's a tough guy, but he's also got a big heart. That was fun to play as an actor, because Gotham City is really the central character in this movie, and cleaning it up is the issue. And then watching the transformation into Two Face, I think the audience can empathize, or understand if not empathize, why he's doing what he does, the pain and the anger and the bitterness and the whole kind of the why of it all. So I was happy to play that.

Question: Was Two Face a tougher character for you to play?

Eckhart: I think tonally, to find the tone, especially knowing what Heath was doing, and trying to get it in the ballpark. You know, being in a historical comic book movie playing an iconic figure, where do I go? What tone does Chris want? And we had a lot of discussions about Chris, being lost sometimes, and saying, "What do I do, where am I going? Should I go here, here, over here?" We tried it many different ways. That was probably, for me, was to find the range of the character and how that fit in with the overall picture of the movie.

Question: Does the physical aspect of Two Face help you? When you look at the mirror and see that makeup, does that enable you to really transform into the character?

Eckhart: Yeah, definitely. Even the suit and the reactions of the other actors.

Question: What were the reactions of the other actors the first time they saw you in that makeup?

Eckhart: It was a lot of touching. It was funny because Heath and I spent time in the same trailer, him figuring out what he was going with The Joker, and me figuring out what I was doing with Two Face, so there was a lot of, weird noises, a lot of us trying on the character together. I really appreciated that.

Question: What surprised you about Heath when you were working with him?

Eckhart: He was, well, I don't know if it surprised me, but what thrilled me was that he was an actor who put it all on the table. It was all out there, and he was committed to this character and loved the character. That the crew and the cast loved him. Chris loved what he was doing with it, and he raised everybody's game. He was a topic of conversation, about his character and what he was doing with it. To act with him was to fly, you know? I watched him as a fan while I was acting, you know? Like going, Wow, this is really amazing.

Question: Were you a comic book fan before you did this?

Eckhart: I was not an aficionado. I read the comic books after I got the part. But I grew up with Batman, I knew the television show. My interest in comic books is little, but what I do like about comic books is the reality of them. And I think that's what interests Chris in making these movies, sort of how do you make it real and entertaining at the same time.

Question: It doesn't look like a comic book movie, does it?

Eckhart: No.

Question: This movie doesn't have that.

Eckhart: No, but it also has a big feel. That's where Chris's genius comes in, because you don't want Batman to be an independent movie. You want it to be big. How Chris achieved that in my opinion is that every chance he gets he does it for real. Those are real stunts, those are real people, those are real crowds. You know, so you're grounding this film in reality, we're in the streets of Chicago flipping trucks in the streets of Chicago. Having helicopters, you're sitting there one day in a building, and you have helicopters flying through the streets of Chicago. That's insane, you know what I mean? We just shut down the city.

Question: Do you think this film is contemporary, do you think this film has contemporary themes?

Eckhart: Oh my gosh, so contemporary. When I read it I was like--I didn't know when I read it if that was his intention, and I think he's stating that it wasn't his intention, but it's just subconsciously it just leaks out. But the themes and the issues and the decisions that one has to make in this life and death, fighting crime, vigilantism. Love. Every, it's a morality play and every issue is explored. Testing people's limits. The Joker asks the Batman to betray his one cardinal rule in order to save the woman he loves. How Shakespearean is that?

Question: What's next for you?

Eckhart: Traveling. Well, Towelhead comes out.

Question: Finally, right?

Eckhart: Yeah, finally, and then Traveling, which is a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston.

Question: That'll be a bit of a change of pace.

Eckhart: Yeah. But it's good. Hopefully it's touching and profound at the same time.

Aaron Eckhart turns in a terrific performance in �The Dark Knight.� Here�s more of what he had to tell us about his new movie:

MoviesOnline: WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT TWO FACE THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW HIM?

AARON ECKHART: Well it was a creation. I saw some guy in England did a sculpture that Chris [Nolan] sent me. Some guy, I wish I could remember his name, he did the most wonderful sculpture of the face. I had an idea from that, the tendons, the teeth, and all of that sort of thing. The eyeball is cool. I will say that I would rather not talk too much about it because I want to let the audience come to it fresh. I don't want them to have the tactical baggage in their heads so that they are looking for it because I think when he turns they will be [surprised].

MoviesOnline: HOW LONG WERE YOU IN MAKE-UP ON THE PROJECT?

AARON ECKHART: I was in early and left late. It was a process. I probably wouldn't want to do a big make-up movie again.

MoviesOnline: WEREN�T YOU AND HEATH LEDGER IN THE SAME MAKE-UP TRAILER?

AARON ECKHART: Yes, we were.

MoviesOnline: IT MUST HAVE BEEN VERY WEIRD SEEING THESE TWO FACES BEING CREATED?

AARON ECKHART: Yeah, it was a lot of fun because Heath always brought in his iPod that had more songs than EMI. He just had all this stuff going. It was cool, it was a lot of fun because of all the noises that you make getting into character. Heath would always be throwing back his hair. It was fun. It was a lot of fun in that make- up trailer discovering our characters together.

MoviesOnline: HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT APPROACHING YOUR CHARACTER ARC?

AARON ECKHART: I don't know, it was really there in the script. Chris just wrote a beautiful script. It was fun playing the politician and the crime fighter and kind of Gotham's hope. It was fun for me as an actor.

I did look at certain characters in history that I thought represented that pretty well, like RFK who was the Attorney General of the United States of America who fought the mob. He was unpopular sometimes even amongst his own family because of those ties. I thought he was a good representation. He was fresh, he was young, and he was driven to get rid of the mob like Harvey is. Harvey is absolutely, 100 percent driven, no matter what happens to him. I looked at things like that and I looked at burn victims when doing Harvey Two Face and seeing what happens to the skin and the body and what happens psychologically to a burn victim and how they feel about themselves. When people are looking at them, they feel monstrous and out of place and that kind of stuff.

Mostly it was just in the script. Chris really just laid out a great character for me, and then in conjunction with the Joker, Batman, and Maggie, we have so much to do, so much is going on in this comic book movie. I felt when I read the script that Chris had tapped into what was going on today in the world, some of the fears, and I thought that was important. I felt like he asked the Joker to ask the other characters in this movie questions that they didn't want to answer. I think it asks us the same questions as an audience. What would we do if we were given a button to blow somebody up that was seemingly lesser than us and all that sort of stuff.

MoviesOnline: It's almost like a Shakespearean tragedy in a way.

AARON ECKHART: Yeah, it's certainly a morality play but very Shakespearean. I just love it when Batman is asking himself questions. He takes a moment to himself and has to go to the oracle. He goes to Alfred and has a discussion or what Lucius says to him. I think those are profound moments in the movie that really ground the movie but then it ramps right back up into Batman flying off of a building so elegantly and gracefully.

MoviesOnline: DID YOU HAVE TO REMIND YOURSELF SOMETIMES THAT THIS WAS A COMIC BOOK MOVIE?

AARON ECKHART: Well it depends if you�re working with Batman or not. [laughs] When we were with Batman, I knew it because he was a big suit. Christian is a big dude. He fills that suit out. The first time I worked with Batman, Gary [Oldman] and I were on the rooftop with the bat signal and we had half of a scene where we were in the middle of the night in Chicago. Then Christian came as Batman and I looked at Gary and I was all [silence] you know? I had one of those moments. Gary was used to it. He had experienced it before.

Another thing about the movie was the resources that Chris had to work with were enormous. What he did with those and how he used those was spectacular. Most of the stunts in this movie are real. It gives a really gritty feeling to this. It really makes us believe that we are in Gotham, that Gotham is falling down. There was one time on the same night that we were on top of that building in the middle of Chicago and all of Chicago was lit up, the buildings and everything. I said �Chris, isn't that great? After work they left the lights on in all the buildings. It looks cool when you pan around.� He looks at me and goes �Those are us.� I was like �Ah.� So this isn't Neil LaBute.�

MoviesOnline: LOOKING BACK AT THE HISTORY OF HARVEY DENT AND TWO FACE, WHAT DID YOU DO AS FAR AS RESEARCH TO PREPARE FOR YOUR ROLE?

AARON ECKHART: In terms of comic books, Chris sent me comic books. In terms of looking at movies or past people who have been, I didn't do any of that. You watch �Batman Begins� you know where Chris is going. You�ve read the script so you know what is happening there. Really what you have to do is then make it personal for yourself. Then you are dealing with the issues of the script, which is betrayal, it�s loss, it's this, that, and the other. I just did that in my own personal way.

MoviesOnline: DID THE ARC OF THE CHARACTER SURPRISE YOU?

AARON ECKHART: I really was. I have to say I was astonished and stunned when I read this. I heard that Heath was the Joker and I thought �What is left for me to do?� I could not believe how much Harvey was in it, and how long Harvey was in it before he went to Two Face. I thought that was brave of Chris. I didn't know I was in the movie until I saw it.

MoviesOnline: DO YOU THINK THAT HARVEY DENT WOULD WANT TO BE BATMAN?

AARON ECKHART: Yeah, I think and vice versa. I think it goes two ways. I think that�s such an interesting dynamic. I think that Christian played that and also Bruce Wayne, it�s interesting because if Batman wants to do that and Harvey wants to do that, then what happens when they meet Bruce and Bruce has got all of that in his head? The dynamics there are just so out of control. Then you have to throw the other thing in there. What are you doing? I actually still don't understand the movie. This is going to be like a play and in 10 years we�re all going to do it again and get to know it more.

MoviesOnline: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WORKING WITH HEATH?

AARON ECKHART: Yeah, absolutely. Heath was wonderful to work with. I unfortunately didn't get enough time to spend with Heath personally and professionally. The time I did spend with him I was amazed by his talent and what he was doing with the Joker. In rehearsals, we went to rehearsals in London, and Chris brought me in and worked with Heath. He started doing his thing albeit it in less than first gear. I thought �Okay, alright, we'll see. This kid is doing something here. I gotta step it up. He�s doing something special.�

I said to Chris �Heath's really going to be good in this.� He said �Yeah.� Then I would hear reports about what Heath was doing and I would come back to work after having some time off. I would say �Hey Chris, how did it go? What's been happening?� And he would go, �Wow!� His eyes would light up and he�d say �Heath's been doing this, and he's been doing this, and he's been doing this, and he did this.� I was like �Okay.� So we all were watching Heath pretty closely and felt he was doing something special. Then having seen it now on the screen I see it.

Our scene together in the hospital is our biggest scene. That was Heath's scene and he drove it, had all the energy in it, and it was a great scene. I really got a lot of energy from him and throughout the day he would find his character. He would find different things to do in the faces. He would improvise and he knew his character so well, so thoroughly that he could go anywhere at anytime. That's when you know that you are working with somebody special. Boom, boom, boom. Over here, over here, over here. I�d say something and he's boom, boom, boom, like this. None of that was in the script, right? We�re working. I felt when he started I was like �Okay, what am I going to do here? I don't know him. I know how I feel but I don't know what I'm going to do.� Heath really helped me with that.

I felt it was an honor to work with him and that was why an actor is an actor, to be with him. I would like to say one last thing about him. He was great off the set. He was happy and he showed me pictures of his kids and talked about his kids, his children, liked to listen to music, and stuff like that. I think that is important to note.

MoviesOnline: ARE YOU DOING ANYTHING ELSE NOW?

AARON ECKHART: I'm taking a break. I have �Traveling� that is coming out. It's a love story with Jennifer Aniston.

MoviesOnline: WHEN IS THAT?

AARON ECKHART: I don't know. The heads are together on that, they don't tell me things. We are just cutting and delivering it, so I think it's going to be good. It's a Universal film.

MoviesOnline: YOU WERE GREAT IN �THE DARK KNIGHT.�

AARON ECKHART: Thank you very much.

�The Dark Knight� opens in theaters on July 18th.

Hottie of the Month: Aaron Eckhart
We talk to the Men's Health cover guy
Nicole Blades



You'd think it'd be hard to miss Aaron Eckhart's face: the chiseled chin and cheekbones, the thick blond hair, the classic movie-star grin. But the truth is, he's so good at morphing into his characters that we often forget they're him. The longhaired, bearded biker boyfriend to Julia Roberts' Erin Brockovich? Eckhart. The dumpy, impotent hubby in Your Friends & Neighbors? E-c-k-h-a-r-t. And this summer, the 40-year-old transforms himself again, into lawyer Harvey Dent and villain Two-Face, in the blockbuster-bound Batman flick The Dark Knight. With 20-plus films on his r�sum�, the California native seems at ease in a variety of roles, from schemer (Thank You for Smoking) to sweetie (No Reservations). We asked the real Eckhart to please stand up and answer a few questions.

We Asked...

Tell us one thing you find sexy about women. Surprise us.
I'm always immediately interested in a woman who's self-assured. I'm not saying she should be confident the way a man is--I don't want the same energy. But I enjoy that beautifully feminine, playful cockiness. I like that game, that dance.

If you had to apologize for one thing on behalf of all men, what would it be?
Sports! So many hours lost. So many discussions about why we can't just watch the highlights�

Who was the first girl to break your heart?
There was a girl who broke my heart when I was 15. I loved her; she was everything. She left me for my brother, who's a year and a half older than me. It killed me. But it's funny how perception changes everything. My brother and I talk about it now, and he's like, "I never did that." He doesn't even know he stole my girl.

How Eckhart rolls between roles

1. Driving fast The scenic ride between his two ranches--one in California and the other in Montana--helps him blow off steam.

2. Browsing leading ladies Having costarred with Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, and most recently, Jennifer Aniston, he jokes about asking, "Who's the girl?" before accepting a part.

3. Keeping confidential To guard against leaking a new script, he always carries half of it with him and leaves the other half in his hotel room.