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Aaron Eckhart, the smooth operator
Interview, Sept, 1998 by Oren Moverman
If Aaron Eckhart is the consummate '90s leading men, it has less to do with our definition of leading (i.e., charming) and much more to do with the sorry state of being a man. With his all American, whiter-than-thou good looks, Eckhart burst onto the scene in Neil LaBute's misanthropic gem In the Company of Men (1997) as Chad, a corporate capo who goes on a power trip to entwine his frat-buddy supervisor (Matt Malloy) and a deaf secretary (Stacy Edwards) into a middle-management game of betrayal - all in the name of executive erections.
In LaBute's new sexual shocker, Your Friends & Neighbors, this Northern California-born minimalist actor flips the coin to become the impotent Barry. Redheaded and mustachioed, he pulls a Robert De Niro, having gained fortyfive pounds for the role to explore a more pathetic masculine terrain where lost lust for a wife translates into a lost lust for life. Teamed with a vicious Jason Patric and a neurotically horny Ben Stiller, Eckhart once again brilliantly distills the essence of manhood in the post-feminist age. This time, however, he is on the receiving end of betrayal.
OREN MOVERMAN: In Your Friends & Neighbors, you metamorphosed into a quiet, tortured man who is not really into power even though he occupies considerable space. He's actually the only man in the film who seems capable of loving. Was this a conscious distancing on your part from the lean and mean Chad?
AARON ECKHART: Absolutely. After In the Company of Men, people were sending me scripts with roles for the all-American angry yuppie, and I just wanted a cleaner slate. Women's immediate reaction to Chad was very violent and very get-this-guy-away-from-me. I wanted to be known as an actor and I chose Barry as the antithesis to Chad. And then Neil and I talked about making him gain weight, making him round and soft. When we worked on the film, people didn't even recognize me from In the Company of Men, and that's kind of what I wanted.
OM: Could you have played the role so effectively without the physical changes?
AE: I think the physical changes put me in the right frame of mind, but I didn't draw from my weight gain, I drew from my own experiences. The weight helps the audience to visually categorize this guy, to stereotype him.
OM: But do you think men actually reflect their psyche through their physical appearance?
AE: Definitely. Having gained forty-five pounds, I know that for sure. I'm down again to about 168 and I feel much more confident right now. When I was Barry, a woman could have told me she loved and adored me, and I wouldn't have believed her. I couldn't get past this ugliness within me. I went from a thirty-two waist to a thirty-eight waist. I felt I'd lost a part of myself by going through such a severe change, but I needed to make Barry like an out-of-control fighter pilot who could never make it. He has all the dreams of being a strong man, and yet his life is just crumbling and he always feels the weight on his shoulders. In contrast, the Jason Patric character is in control of his body, so Barry becomes subservient to him.
OM: Another manly choice you made - and it kind of relates to half the men in the world - is the mustache.
AE: It was part of my fighter pilot plan. [laughs] Sometimes facial hair is there to cover something up or to make an aggressive, physical, territorial statement. We're talking about a man who can't perform confidently with his wife; he's got something to hide.
OM: Why is the LaBute man - the white, supposedly educated, American male - such a contemptuous, incapable creature?
AE: I think in Neil's world men are lost; they're going after false gods. Everything they believe to be socially acceptable is intangible. They go for money, for prestige, or power, but ultimately it's a facade, an illusion. They're no longer looking inside themselves for happiness. Love has become "How many times are you having sex a week?" instead of "What's the quality of my relationship?" I also think that in today's society, betrayal is more socially acceptable.
OM: It's the winner-take-all corporate mentality that is sort of soul-numbing.
AE: Because we quantify everything. I think that's what Neil's films are about - patriarchal sexual politics.
OM: And these privileged, nasty, hapless characters are supposed to be our friends and neighbors? Do you know people like this?
AE: Yeah: myself.
OM: Come on.
AE: No, I'm serious. People won't, or don't, believe that these characters and situations exist, but they do. I guess when you put it on the screen for an hour and a half in an intensified form, it looks impossible, but really it's not. Each day we are manipulating or we are being manipulated in some way. It just shows how fallible we all are, how weak and human. The characters in the film are artfully realistic, and I do know real people like this. I think that we all have these kind of nasty instincts depending on the circumstances; everybody's a nice person and nobody's a nice person.
OM: But where's the redemption? It can't all just be pathetic or a savage dance of manhood?
AE: I think the redemption is the fact that these men are still friends. They are human and humans can change and evolve. In some weird way I think they'll go on. It's not so much redemption as it is a kind of a compromise, a positive erosion. We soften as we get older in some ways. I can certainly see that with Barry. I think he just blames himself anyway. His best bet is to get to the gym.
OM: In other words work on his self-image?
AE: There's a direct correlation between health and happiness. Maybe he should eat less pizza.
OM: But then Jason Patric's character is ultra healthy physically and yet so psychotic in his behavior.
AE: Yeah, he needs to eat more pizza. [laughs]
OM: All right, so it's about balance.
AE: Maybe that's it. It's not a new thing, but maybe moderation in all things is healthy. Chad wasn't balanced. Barry is imbalanced physically and mentally. There is always this kind of imbalance in Neil's characters.
OM: In both his films you play a recognizable male type. Are you a type, or is it more complex in real life?
AE: Jeez, if I was as complex in movies as I am in life, I'd give myself a pat on the back. I don't know if I have a specific type. I'm much more uneven in real life than any of these characters. I'm a peaks-and-valleys guy. I'm a screamer and then I don't like to talk to people . . . I mean, I really am uneven. And I hope I won't let audiences categorize me in the future. I have a fear of being a type, and the actors I admire - like Jeff Bridges, Russell Crowe, the young Jack Nicholson - don't really fit any kind of type either.
OM: Both Chad and Barry are characters devoid of back story, past experience, family, religion, anything. From what I've read about you, I can tell this isn't your favorite subject, but could you talk a bit about your own background?
AE: God, I wouldn't even know where to start.
OM: Fair enough.
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