Actor Spotlight: AARON ECKHART

Aaron Eckart is the fourth actor covered in The Prezzies' Actor Spotlight series. Click the link to read about previous subjects Sam Rockwell, John C. Reilly, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

With the release of the summer's biggest box office hit, The Dark Knight, critics and fans alike have given infinite praise to Aaron Eckhart for his Harvey Dent/Two-Face portrayal. While his performance is somewhat overshadowed by the immediacy for Heath Ledger's posthumous career, both critics and fans have seem to open their eyes towards the blond, chisel-jawed Mormon actor. He's been around the scene for over 15 years, but outside of a few juicier roles, Eckhart had been the underrated actor of terrible films.

Before The Dark Knight, and even possibly after it, Eckhart has been a vaguely familiar face (occasionally he'll get confused with actor Thomas Jane) that hasn't been noted for any particular role. Critically praised in 2005's Thank You For Smoking and Julia Robert's award-winning vehicle Erin Brockovich, in mainstream film Eckhart's biggest performances were in box office duds such as The Core and The Black Dahlia. Nobody blames him for his performances, nor for the projects he chooses. At least The Black Dahlia was supposed to be good on paper.

Born Aaron Edward Eckhart on March 12, 1968 in Cupertino, California (in the area of San Jose), Eckhart and his two older brothers grew up in a devout Mormon household. The family traveled around, and during his high school years Eckhart at times lived in both England and Australia. He took several years off after graduating to chase waves in Hawaii and serve the LDS (Latter Day Saints) Church in a mission to France, though he still found time to go skiing there.

After coming back stateside, Eckhart enrolled at Brigham Young University, the most prestigious Mormon-affiliated college, as a film major. There he struck up a friendship with writer/director Neil LaBute, who several years later would go on to cast Eckhart in his first starring role. The two would form a nice pairing at BYU, earning several awards for their plays.

Like many actors looking for his big break, Eckhart began appearing in small-budget television movies and schlock films during his time at BYU. First was a bit role in 1992's Double Jeopardy, a Sela Ward/Bruce Boxleitner CBS movie. He followed that with the role of Samson in Ancient Secrets Of The Bible, Part II, and a tiny part in Scott Glenn's Slaughter Of The Innocents in 1994. Eckhart also participated as an extra in Beverly Hills 90210.

Eckhart's career stalled for several years in the mid-1990's, but was kick-started by fate. LaBute got his hands on $25,000 financing, and decided to cast Eckhart in the lead role of his debut film, In The Company Of Men, which was adapted from one of his BYU plays. Eckhart starred as Chad, a seedy junior executive who decides to exact revenge on the female race by corrupting a sweet, deaf secretary. Company Of Men, despite its budget, became an independent hit thanks to its controversial subject, and this performance got the attention of producers for both Eckhart and LaBute. Eckhart won the Satellite and Independent Spirit awards for Best Debut.

LaBute picked up a $5 million dollar budget, 400 times higher than his previous film, to make the ensemble drama Your Friends and Neighbors in 1998. Eckhart appeared with the likes of Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, Catherine Keener, Natassja Kinski and Jason Patric. Out of the six stars, Eckhart was the least well known at the time, but was lauded as an integral part of the group.

After a couple more good roles in 1998 indies Thursday and Molly, Oliver Stone noticed Eckhart's potential and cast him as offensive coordinator Nick Crozier in Stone's ill-fated film about the injustices of football, Any Given Sunday. Unfortunately, Oliver Stone is to football what a midget is to basketball, and the movie was a disaster. Despite the star-studded cast, many missteps were given flak, including Cameron Diaz's role as an owner. Like much of his future career, despite the bad reviews for the film, Eckhart, in a bland role, wasn't at fault.

But for what Any Given Sunday was worth, Eckhart got his biggest and most important role the next year. Co-starring with Julia Roberts in her Academy Award-making turn as the titular Erin Brockovich, Eckhart turned away from his clean-faced, smarmy stereotype and played the sensitive, ponytail wearing, white trash biker who helps take care of her kids. His role was pretty thankless, but it was Eckhart's first time in the exposure of an award-heavy film.

Also that year was Neil LaBute's sell-out third project, Nurse Betty. Again, because of the principal cast (Renee Zellweger, Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear), Eckhart got deflected of the critics ire, but LaBute wasn't so lucky. While Eckhart has found salvation with a couple of stellar roles, LaBute has gone backwards.

After Director Sean Penn's The Pledge saw him paired up as Jack Nicholson's young detective partner trying to find a girl's killer, Eckhart saw a string of quasi-starring roles in underachieving films that tried to make him a bonafide household name. The fourth pairing with LaBute came Possession, an underwhelming British drama featuring Gwyneth Paltrow. The Core featured an Eckhart/Hilary Swank pairing to save the world in weak Armageddon fashion, while Paycheck returned him to sleazy corporate territory opposite Ben Affleck, Paul Giamatti and Uma Thurman.

Suspect Zero was a promising but ultimately flat serial killer thriller with Ben Kingsley, while a supporting role in Ron Howard's misguided The Missing, his attempt at a serious western, went nowhere. Eckhart's career as a leading man seemed in jeopardy. So back he went to starring in a trio of independent films, one of which became his third universally acclaimed part.

Conversations With Other Women and Neverwas were good little films in their own right, but it was the role of Nick Naylor in Jason Reitman's (Juno) directorial feature debut Thank You For Smoking that put Eckart back on the map all over again. This time, despite the cast of faces (Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Sam Elliott, Adam Brody, Maria Bello) in the ensemble, it was all Eckhart's picture. His performance, combining the smug arrogance he was previously known for and the soft realization of a man in a crisis, Eckhart earned acting nominations from the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit, Prism, and Satellite Awards.

The Black Dahlia was originally intended to be the widely released crime noir drama that would earn Eckhart further kudos, ala L.A. Confidential did for Russell Crowe. But Brian De Palma's film fell hard thanks to some clunky storytelling and not-up-task acting by Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, and even Eckhart himself. Like fellow actors James Franco and Jason Ritter, popping up in a cameo for LaBute's widely despised The Wicker Man remake didn't exactly bolster his resume. Around this time he also began dating Kristyn Osborn from the country group SHeDAISY, and appeared in one of their music videos.

2007 gave Eckhart more genial everyman characters to play, with a DOA turn in the quickly forgotten romantic comedy No Reservations, co-starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. His role as a chef with romantic interests to a woman with a put-upon child situation recalls a sanitized comedy version of Erin Brockovich. Then, with the meekly accepted Bill, which finally got around to being dumped in theatres in early 2008, Eckhart was the titular character who finds himself stuck in unappreciated average guy role.

But these were just small potatoes for his masterpiece performance, the one that once and for all made him a household name after 16 years of ups and downs as featured star. For The Dark Knight, visionary director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige) cast Eckhart as Harvey Dent, the white knight district attorney of Gotham City. Yes, his character becomes an evil, disfigured bad guy, but it was Nolan and Eckhart's prerogative to focus on the character of Dent himself. Mixing what Eckhart has shown to be so good at- a self-effacing cockiness with deep emotional insecurities- The Dark Knight was commended for its performances from not just Ledger and Bale, but for Eckhart as well.

For newer fans and critics, this may have come as a surprise, but for people who have followed Eckhart's career, it was expected. Talk has Ledger receiving a posthumous Best Supporting Actor nomination from all the major award ceremonies, but truth is, Eckhart is just as much deserving. Ledger had the darker, flashier role, but Eckhart held up just as well.

Later this year he appears in the film festival raved but Fox News-hated Towelhead (formerly Nothing Is Private), a drama about the growing pains of an Arab-American teenager, featuring Toni Collette and his Thank You For Smoking co-star Maria Bello. Eckhart plays a bigoted Army reservist neighbor who gets into some deep trouble with the girl. Further in the pipeline is Traveling by first-time director Brandon Camp. The romantic drama co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Martin Sheen.

Aaron Eckhart will never be the unquestionable and only star of a major summer blockbuster or nearly-guaranteed Oscar contender, but his career has been more than satisfactory. He gets a steady stream of work in both mainstream and independent films, gets a chance to try new things, and has made fans in the process, without succumbing to the pressures of evangelical media. For a Mormon boy who has stayed out of the public spotlight, his career is very good indeed.

The Prezzies' Top 5 Aaron Eckhart Performances
1. The Dark Knight
2. Thank You For Smoking
3. In The Company Of Men
4. Erin Brockovich
5. Your Friends & Neighbors