Aaron Eckhart Interview, Dark Knight

We sit down and peel back the layers in an interview with Two Face himself... Aaron Eckhart! MoviesOnline sat down with Aaron Eckhart to talk about his new film, “The Dark Knight,” directed by Christopher Nolan. Eckhart plays Harvey Dent, the newly elected District Attorney, who has risen to prominence in Gotham City and is on a mission to break organized crime's stranglehold on his beleaguered city.

Aaron Eckhart explains, "Harvey has charged himself with tackling organized crime and cleaning up the streets. He is the shining new hope of Gotham City, the 'White Knight,' as he is called. He starts out full of optimism and enthusiasm...where he ends up is somewhere completely different," he hints. "It's a great role and I'm a big fan of Chris Nolan's, so when he approached me about doing the film, it was a no-brainer."

Nolan says that while Eckhart looks every inch the part of the handsome and charismatic DA, his reasons for casting the actor ran deeper. "We were looking for somebody who could embody that All-American charm because you have to invest in him as a very attractive, heroic figure at the beginning of the movie. But he also had to have an edge; he had to suggest this undercurrent of anger and darkness that Harvey Dent needed to have, so where he goes in the story is believable. You can't present a character like this as simply a heroic figure with no flaws, no dark side. Aaron captured all of those qualities very, very well."

As the new Gotham City DA, Harvey Dent not only has to contend with a rise in crime, but also with a masked vigilante known as Batman. "It's an interesting dynamic," Eckhart remarks, "because Harvey sees Batman fighting crime in a way that he would like to but cannot. Harvey has to stay within the boundaries of the law. He has to do overtly what Batman is doing covertly. He admires Batman's intentions, even if he can't publicly support his methods."

Nolan comments, "It seemed most logical to us that Bruce initially saw Batman as a short-term crusade, as a symbol to inspire the good people of Gotham to take their city back. In Harvey Dent, he finally sees the response he was looking for. Harvey is the hero that Gotham needs--the hero with a face, not one wearing a mask." Bruce Wayne also realizes that he has started something that has spun out of control, and Harvey Dent may be his only hope for being able to end it. If Harvey Dent can succeed, then maybe there is a world in which Bruce can hang up his Batman cape and return to a normal life.

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.