Aaron Eckhart: Aaron from Erin

https://lebeauleblog.com/2021/10/18/aaron-eckhart-aaron-from-erin/

He was the villain in the highest grossing Batman movie of all times. Aaron Eckhart had more screen time in The Dark Knight than Heath Ledger, but his character isn’t nearly as memorable. Eckhart is a fine actor with movie star good looks, but he’s faced a memorability problem his entire career. Coming off a star-making turn in Erin Brockovich, the actor couldn’t get recognized by fans. In this interview from the October 2000 issue of Movieline magazine, Eckhart lights a girl’s cigarette and pretends to be the one of stars of The Perfect Storm.

Aaron Eckhart has no indication that he’s about to be ambushed and mortified. There’s no hint of predators lurking. His interviewer is the model of decorum. It’s a balmy July evening. We’re in Westwood, chatting poolside at the W hotel, which is so trendy that the menu requires English translation. (“Plantain pappardelle… smoky sofrito… mango lime mojo.”)

Eckhart, lean, blond, square-jawed and 32, is meeting with me to promote his new film Nurse Betty, in which he costars with Renée Zellweger, Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman. Still flushed and wet-haired from a two-hour boxing workout, dressed in a dark T-shirt and black pants, he orders bottled water and lights a filtered Camel. We chat for 10 minutes and then, as if on cue, a tall blonde in a skintight dress saunters over.

“Can I bum a cigarette?” she says and looks Eckhart up and down. Does she know who he is? Is she coming on to him? Now, it so happens that just prior to her approach, Eckhart had been saying that he can still walk the streets unrecognized because people don’t make the connection between him and the odd assortment of characters he’s played during his short but explosive career. In 1997 he starred as a calculating misogynist in In the Company of Men. Then he played a flabby masturbator (he gained 40 pounds for the role) in Your Friends & Neighbors. After that he starred as the hairy, teddy bear of a biker who softens up Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. Granted, the first two were low-budget, film festival favorites, but how could anyone who makes it with Julia Roberts in a huge hit still be off the radar screen? I decide to put Eckhart’s anonymity to the test.

“Do you know who this man is?” I ask the slinky blonde. Now Eckhart groans, sinks down in his chair and covers his face.

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” he says.

“Have you seen him in any movies?” I persist. The woman bends down to get a closer look at Eckhart’s beautiful, bearded face. He’s now twisting into the fetal position and worn make eye contact with her.

“I’m not a huge moviegoer,” she says.

“That’s the first thing they say,” moans Eckhart.

“Oh, c’mon, work with me here,” I say to him.

“No, this interview is over,” he says.

“OK, tell me who you are,” says the woman. She’s genuinely curious.

“I have to go,” says Eckhart, who makes no effort to leave.

“No, please tell me.”

“OK, I’ll tell you,” he says. “I’m Mark Wahlberg.” There is a slight resemblance. “Did you see The Perfect Storm?”

“I just saw it,” she says. “It was really great.”

“I was the guy with the girlfriend.”

“Ohhh,” She steps back and regards him as one would a painting. “You’ve lost weight.”

This observation brings Eckhart out of his funk (he bragged to me earlier that he’s down to 168 pounds), and now, gallantly, cupped hand warding off the breeze, he lights the woman’s cigarette. She runs over to gush to her friends about who she’s just met. Eckhart turns to me and mutters, “That was terrible. I will not forgive you for putting me on the spot like that.”

“I put her on the spot, not you.”

“It would have been nice if she had recognized me.”

Eckhart still might be just another pretty face in the lobbies and lounges of major cities, but to Hollywood insiders, he’s one of the hottest actors going. Aside from Nurse Betty, he just finished shooting the Sean Penn-directed cop drama The Pledge, in which he costars with his idol, Jack Nicholson. Next he’ll leave for London to film the Neil LaBute-directed Possession, a love story that costars Gwyneth Paltrow and is based on the erudite A.S. Byatt novel. The Hollywood experience he’d first like to discuss, though, took place a year-and-a-half ago when he got a call from Oliver Stone, who wanted him to play an assistant coach in Any Given Sunday, “He called me on Thursday and asked me to start shooting on Tuesday. I wanted to work with Oliver. I had heard stories of how he gets performances out of people, and I wanted to experience that.”

Keep in mind that at that point, Eckhart was an actor used to shooting two-character, dialogue-laden scenes in bedrooms, like he did for In the Company of Men. “My first day on the set I walk onto the football field and Oliver’s filming drills. Huge players all around. Oliver is yelling at me, ‘Get in there.’ I didn’t have anything specific to do. There was nothing in the script.