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INTERVIEW: Aaron Eckhart on "Thank You for Smoking"
By Jenny Halper in New York City
Ceramic babies with incense cigarettes are scattered on the table, and Aaron Eckhart wants one.
“That is unbelievable, can I get one of these?” asks the actor, after sauntering amiably into the room and picking up a tiny would-be smoker. Like Eckhart's latest film, these toys, which puff away at the light of a match, are “not intended for the politically correct.”
For an actor who's played characters with bottom-of-the-food chain morals (“In the Company of Men”) and displayed sometimes laughable heroics (“The Core”) Eckhart is supremely comfortable in his skin - one quality that led director Jason Reitman to cast him as a self-assured, almost-too-charming cigarette lobbyist in his adaptation of Christopher Buckley's best-selling novel “Thank You for Smoking.”
Eckhart stars as the very busy Nick Naylor, who, in the course of two screen hours, gets a death threat, beds a journalist (Katie Holmes), battles a senator (William H. Macy), and meets the Marlboro Man himself.
Q (Journalist #1): You usually play the likable nice guy.
AARON: Really?
Q (Journalist #2): I thought the exact opposite.
AARON: It's so funny what the perception is. It depends sometimes, that's the great thing. Sometimes I'm likable and sometimes I'm just adorable. (Laughs). I look at this guy as a complicated character- he's got his challenges in his daily work. But I think ultimately he's a nice guy.
Q: Did you take on this character to break away from the nice guy roles?
AARON: No, I think…you know, this is what I've always said about “In the Company of Men,” you can take the most heinous thing and dress it up and spin it. Whether it's smoking or alcohol, tobacco or drugs, or prescription pills, you can make a case for anything, that's what debate's about in school. Especially if you don't believe it, you can take the opposite view and make a case for it. This movie and this character is all about the challenges of making people believe in something they don't necessarily think they believe in. Everything in Washington is lobby. And the movie shows it, even down to cheese. They spend millions and millions of dollars on lobbies, and these guys will fight and push anybody out of the way. I think for heightened drama he's a tobacco lobbyist. You couldn't get a more politically heinous person.
Q: When you're playing the main character in a satire, is it hard not to make him a caricature?
AARON: Well, you have to keep it honest for yourself, you have to believe in why people need cigarettes, and you do that by saying “Look, right now as we speaking, there are millions of people taking a drag. That's important to them, they don't want to give up cigarettes, they like cigarettes. And am I supposed to go and tell them what to do? That they can't have a cigarette? Because you don't like it?” I can make you feel like the bad guy. And that's the beauty of this character, that's the beauty of anything. You can say “Fine, I don't want anybody living in New York City because I can go out daily and I ingest a pack of cigarettes a day. So we're going to lock down this city.” I give you that argument, you're not going to care about lung cancer anymore. Should we collect all the bees and put them away so nobody dies of a bee sting? People have to live their lives. I think that's the message Nick Naylor's trying to put out there. Because people in Washington are doing it right now. So that's how you do it. And you do it with a smile on your face.
Q: Do you smoke?
AARON: I used to smoke. I quit like three and a half years ago.
Q: Why'd you quit?
AARON: Why'd I quit? Because I consider myself to be an athletic person…I never felt good about it, I felt like every time I took a drag I had a hollow space in my chest.
Q: How long did you smoke for?
AARON: I smoked through my twenties. I was buying cigarettes, I would take one when I woke up and one at night, you know?
Q: What brand?
AARON: Kools…no, it's so weird, ‘cause I just don't think of myself as a smoker. I must have smoked Marlboros…I think.
Q: Why'd you start?
AARON: I don't know. Why'd I start, why does anybody start? I really picked it up when I started making movies, it was probably more of a nervous thing. Something to do, everybody does it on film sets. Not so much anymore, though, I'd have to say. It's more of a nervous thing, filling in time. And then you get addicted.
Q: Was it hard to quit, did you have to go on the patch or anything like that?
AARON: I quit through hypnotism, which worked for me very well. Cary Gaynor in Santa Monica did it for me, and the guy's a miracle worker, so I don't smoke.
Q: So he could say a word, and all of a sudden you're smoking five packs a day?
AARON: No, but I do cluck like chicken often. (Laughs)
Q: How did you film the abduction scene? Was there blue screen?
AARON: They threw me in a van and cut all my clothes off, that's pretty real. You can't get on the Lincoln Memorial, so that is blue screen. You couldn't get up there, and we don't have the budget, it's a relatively small budget movie.
Q: Who shot it?
AARON: Jason, because he loves to operate…he operated the camera. And he would just take his little camera and - you know you have video on your camera, thirty seconds of video or whatever it is? He would literally shoot some of the movie like that. We'd get in the back of the car and the camera would be in the car and he'd be like, “action!” This really is independent filmmaking.
Q: That was used in the movie?
AARON: Yeah, it's in the film. You'd be going, and in thirty seconds it'd run out. And you're like, “I'm a professional actor!”
Q: Did you do research, talk to any lobbyists?
AARON: No. I would have, I was doing another movie at the time, so it was difficult. I did internet research, vocal research, I listened to them, I read books about it. I know the sexy answer is “Yes, I lived with them for six months,” but it didn't happen. Like I was saying before, we're all lobbyists here today, whatever you want to lobby for. If it's where you want to go to dinner tonight, whatever it is, who doesn't want to take the dog out- you're a lobbyist. And all you have to do is make a good argument. Now, are you a lobbyist type? That's a different thing. Are you a guy who can withstand rejection, act like an idiot, do whatever it takes to get that guy to say yes? I, personally, am not that person. To me, that's a salesman, I'm not a salesman. I guess I am a salesman for my movies, I'm here, but I am excited about them, so I am, it's all relative, isn't it?
Q: We all seem to have a very different perception of the type of roles you play. Do you credit that diversity to Neil (LaBute)? Your roles in “In the Company of Men” and “Possession” and “Your Friends and Neighbors” are so different.
AARON: It all came from Neil. Neil is definitely responsible for it in a big way, and I just talked to Neil last night about doing something else which is another whole different thing. It's not that you get bored, but it's more enticing to go out and try for different things that you don't necessarily think that you're good for. It's important to play your strengths, and with this movie and Neil it does play into one of my strengths, which is this ability to be unabashedly shameless about being a controversial character. Nick can be considered a controversial character. Chad in “In The Company of Men” can…so I think I'm able to play those roles, and I like playing them, you know? But I also like to get the girl, so I will be doing a lot more of that. This movie I'm doing in New York right now is much more of a romantic movie.
Q: Is that “Mostly Martha”?
AARON: Yeah, yeah. We started today, I just came from there.
Q: I'm a big fan of the German movie. Do you play an Italian chef?
AARON: We've shifted things around, but it's Catherine Zeta-Jones and myself. Scott Hicks is directing it and we play chefs.
Q: Why did they decide to base is in New York ?
AARON: Because Germany wasn't available. (Laughs). No, because it's an excellent culinary town, and we've got the best chefs in the world here. We're studying with one of them at a restaurant called Fiama. This is where the best of the best is, and we're the best of the best in terms of chefs. And your patrons, their palates are more educated and refined, so I think it's a good milieu for it. Also it's a defined space, New York , and that helps the film as well. We're doing a lot on the streets, a lot in restaurants.
Q: You're in culinary school?
AARON: I've been in the kitchen. I've been, you know, sautéing and spicing and chopping and stuff like that. My cooking is amateur at best, but that's the great thing about movies, I don't have to be a professional.
Q: Do you get the girl? Catherine Zeta-Jones?
AARON: Yes. She gets me, and I get her.
Q: The same way you get Katie Holmes?
AARON: No…it's all with a loving touch. We fall in love, and we have a very…the great thing about “Mostly Martha,” which is an untitled film now, is that it's a very sweet film. And I think those are nice too.
Q: What else do you have coming out?
AARON: I have three more, I have “Conversations with Other Women.” It's Helena Bonham Carter and me, a first time director named Hans Canosa, a mature adult love story, I think it's a fantastic love story, I think you guys will too when you see it. It's adult themes, it's not juvenile, it's really about two people being in love, and it's intimate, it's funny, it's sarcastic, it's hurtful…it's really a sweet film, I'm very proud of it. Also I have a movie called “The Black Dahlia” coming out in October, Brian De Palma directed it, with Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank. It's about the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in LA, which was filmed in Bulgaria (laughs). And then I have a movie called “Neverwas” that's coming out, I'm not sure when that is, which is another great cast, as this one is.
Q: So you're leaning towards smaller films?
AARON: For sure. This whole last year I went out and made…even “Black Dahlia,” even though that's a bigger film, it's an independently financed film. So I went out and did it. I went out and worked really hard last year, I'm going to work really hard this year. I'd like to do romantic comedies. And I'd like to do movies that make people feel good.
“Thank You for Smoking” hits theaters on March 17th.
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