EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: AARON ECKHART (TOWELHEAD)

I’ve interviewed Aaron Eckhart a couple of times now and I have come to the conclusion that, in many ways, he is Harvey Dent. Before the scars, anyway. Eckhart has this incredible, almost palpable decency and morality about him – there’s a reason we’ve been shouting his name for Captain America for the last decade. He projects a sense of authentic American values that our movie stars haven’t had for a long, long time.

Which makes his role in Alan Ball’s Towelhead all the more disturbing and intriguing. A military man in a Texas suburb in the days leading up to the first Gulf War, Eckhart’s character is a right wing racist who falls in love with his new neighbor, a 13 year old Middle Eastern girl. It’s a major credit to Eckhart that he can take this character, who sleeps with a 13 year old, and somehow make him human and vulnerable and real.

I sat down in a Beverly Hills hotel room with Eckhart for this interview and was surprised that, when the tape starting rolling, he asked me to sit for a photo for him. At the end of the interview he did take my picture; at first I thought he was just photographing all the journalists, but then it turned out he was only taking pictures of a select few. I like the idea of Eckhart one day exhibiting his photos and me being in the collection.

Long day?

Not at all.

Really? Usually these things are torture.

Well, I figure you can choose to make them torture or choose not to make them torture. I enjoy them. I’m here, it’s part of the job. I meet interesting people.

Thank you! I take that as a compliment.

I look forward to taking a picture of you.

Oh really?

Will you let me take a picture of you?

Of course.

It’s really interesting that in the film Jasira’s mother is one of the most unpleasant mothers I’ve seen in film in a long time. Contrast that with your character, who does horrible things, but who still comes across as more human than Jasira’s mother. Can you talk about the humanity of your character?

I felt – and Alan felt this way as well – the only way we could do this character and make it worth it is if he comes from a very real place and falls in love. I didn’t want to be a predator, I didn’t want to be a hunter. I wanted to be – and Alan did too, and I think it’s written that way – a man who has reached a dead end in his life, he hasn’t achieved his full potential and he lives his entire life in black and white. When he looks at his kid he’s not looking in a mirror. He’s not satisfied with the choices in his life. When he meets Jasira and gets sort of the light turned on in him, the inner child, the excitement, the vibrancy of life, the excitement, the colors, the five senses become acute – everything that loves does to you. I felt that was where his humanity comes from, a guy who falls in love with someone who happens to be a 13 year old girl. And I think that happens a lot. It’s interesting you’ll be sitting in a restaurant and a family will be out to dinner and they won’t be really talking and then a waitress comes up and all of a sudden the man just perks up and finds this new life in himself. I see this in airports all the time. I see that and go, ‘I hope I’m not going to be that way.’ But it’s human nature.

The interesting thing about Travis is that he knows he’s entering dark waters, but he can’t help himself. He has nobody to turn to; he’s lonely. He’s in a cul de sac in a house and the only thing he can really look at is Jasira’s house – where can he go from there? He has no way out. When he was out on that date [with Jasira] I wanted to make Travis like he was 16 years old and it was his first date. When he says, ‘I’m going to Iraq,’ I wanted it to feel like he couldn’t live without her. And that was the only way that I, as an actor, could get into this movie. It’s the only interesting way for me to play the character. Then I have such a larger range of complexities and emotions. I lie in the movie. I know I’m doing wrong. I manufacture things. I seemingly have sex with her, right? I do. That’s obviously criminal stuff.

You have a really good script, you have a really good director. Does that mitigate what must be the obvious hesitation, that you’ll be playing a character who has sex with a 13 year old? Does it make it easier to make that decision?

Obviously Alan is a terrific director and writer and a great guy. Summer [Bishil] had a great time on the set. But regardless, when people are sitting in the theater they’re watching me with a 13 year old.

And it doesn’t matter how old she is in real life.

It doesn’t matter that she’s 18 or 19 years old. It doesn’t matter to me as a character, because in my mind I’m doing a 13 year old. That has its consequences, so I had to really think about this. It wasn’t always the easiest thing going to work… and not only doing that, but the things I had to say, calling people names and using derogatory terms. But you sign on to play that character and – this is where Alan comes in – there’s a reason to do this, there’s a reason why we’re telling this story. You have to buy into that story before you can do this, and if you don’t buy into that story you don’t have a chance. But I have to say that going to set and doing and saying that stuff was unpleasant.

Your personal morality played into this, but does that mean that as actor if you’re offered a role that’s maybe a good role, a fun role, of a character who does or says really unpleasant things but there’s no bigger picture, no deeper meaning, it’s just a flashy movie, are you unwilling to go there?

It’s not that I’m unwilling to go there, it’s that I have better choices. I have other choices where I won’t have to do those things and get my rocks off. That’s usually the case. When I see movies where it’s egregious and there’s no real rhyme or reason they don’t do anything for me. But you can usually find a reason to say those things. I would rather not, you know? [laughs] I always find it’s ugly when I’m sitting in a theater and people are just destroying other groups of people, it’s just unpleasant for me as an audience member. But I think this is different, it’s bigger. You’re tackling religion, you’re tackling social and ethnic issues – everything is in this movie. American society, Middle Eastern/American mixed marriage, all this stuff is so relevant today, so important. On some level or other there’s somebody out there who can relate to something in this movie.

Some of the toughest stuff for me to watch in this movie is Jasira becoming a woman. What she has to do, how she discovers that – that to me is all uncomfortable territory. I felt like my role in this movie was a piece of the pie, and not the whole movie.

I think we both know that in this industry the quality of a movie doesn’t always have any reflection on the box office of a movie. And sometimes it’s inverse, where the better movies don’t do that well. This summer you are in a good movie that is one of the most successful movies ever. Why did it hit so hard?

Because Chris did it. Because Chris went to the wall. Because Chris got the right people together. Because Heath fell in love with the role. Because Heath went the extra mile. Because Warner Bros believed in the project. But it’s really down to Chris. He is the master mind of that movie, and nothing happens without him. He was so in control of the movie, every aspect of it. This was not only a seven month shoot, there was a year before and a year afterwards. This guy is a genius.

The movie resonates in such a deep way.

Because he’s put issues in the movie. These are, again, relevant issues. What are you going to choose, who lives, who dies? What’s going with society, vigilantism, what’s going on in big cities, mafias and gangs, this is all real stuff. And he didn’t shy away or try to make fun. And he didn’t choose sides, which I think is another of his brilliant decisions. He’s not pedantic, he’s not teaching, he’s not advocating, he’s giving his characters things to do, and they’re not always the most popular things. Like Alan I think Chris is a very brave filmmaker, and I think that goes a long way with audiences. Especially with summer movies. With summer movies we are now conditioned to not expect anything. If we do then it’s counter programming. But this gives it to us all, and I think people dig that.

And the last thing I will say is that Chris did the actual stunts. He didn’t green screen the movie. That goes such a long way, and people feel like they’re really seeing the action. When he flips the truck, or the helicopters are going through, or they’re going through the streets with this one of a kind prototypical motorcycle, that’s Chris.