Actor Aaron Eckhart tends to blush when his popularity is mentioned. Attempt to convince him that it’s all very real, and he seems to give a nervous chuckle, fidgeting in his chair, shaking his head ‘no,’ and acting as if he can’t handle the truth. Even though he’s starred opposite Oscar winning best actresses like Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, and Hilary Swank; Eckhart’s humble discomfort comes despite continual compliments of his craft. In 1997’s In the Company of Men, where he won the Independent Spirit Award for best debut performance as a conniving player, The Washington Post said he was the “movie's most malignant presence," that he was "in chilling command as a sort of satanic prince in shirtsleeves”. After his stunning Golden Globe nominated portrayal of a shady tobacco lobbyist in 2005’s Thank You for Smoking, USA Today described his work as being a "standout, whip-smart performance”. And with his most popular role to date in 2008’s The Dark Knight, Eckhart seamlessly showed maniacal memorable chops as Harvey Dent, the district attorney turned grotesque gambling gangster Two-Face. The film, which made $1 billion (making it the fourth highest grossing movie of all time) moved cinema connoisseur Roger Ebert to say Eckhart did an "especially good job.” While Premiere magazine wrote that he “makes you believe in his ill-fated ambition … of morphing into the conniving Two-Face.”
In this exclusive interview with The Shadow League, Aaron Eckhart discusses his newest role as the star of I, Frankenstein, while sharing thoughts on the real meaning of success, dreams of an early retirement, and the rage he seems to easily convey on screen in his twenty-plus years as a Hollywood thespian.