Table-ronde - Table Ronde avec l'acteur Aaron Eckhart (vo)

Par Mulder, Paris, Hôtel Park Hyatt Vendôme, 07 janvier 2014

Aaron Eckhart : Bonjour à tous. I pretend to speak french but i do not. We will not do this interview in French? (joke)

Q : Aaron, it is the first time that you play a completely supernatural character.

Eckhart : Well, i guess that you can say that. For me this movie was about a man who is looking for his soul, looking for love. It is about a man who was rejected by his father. He tried to find his personal life. This is what attracted me to this movie. When I read this script , waouh it is like my life, my teenage years. When I was a teenager, I thought I was ugly and I did not know what I would do with my life. Everybody hated me. I was scared. I did not like my parents just as all teenagers around here. Basically looking for who they’re gonna be in life and that struggle. That was when I found the story of Frankenstein which is what everybody relates to. So, this is what I like about the script.

Q : But, on the Mary Shelley’s original story, it is a psychological story. The creature is very deep.

Eckhart : in the history of cinema we go from Mary Shelley’s base. Frankenstein is very perceptive, he is good learner. He is adapted from observation. He survives. He has all this guilt about being self-rejected in his life but he wants love. He has frightened all people. In the cinema we got a man who has some balls in his head and he did not move very well. He did not speak very well. With Mary Shelley again, I make a comparison with adaptation in cinema and say that this is not Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a sensitive person. He wants love. It is what he is looking for. It is what he wants in his life. It is all is about this. I put that in this movie. Basically, this is a different movie obviously from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It is very different. It is a fantastic world which deals with gargoyles and demons. The essence for me is about a man who is looking for love and obviously with other stuff. I think really I came from where Mary Shelley is coming from. It is a guy who is tried to make his way in the world.

Q : Concerning your training, it is something that you practice more and learn more before this role ?

Eckhart : yes, I did six month before this movie. You know the Kali stick fighting? I had no idea what Kali stick fighting was. I read the script and say what about these sticks. I will really use these sticks ? This is what they call Kali stick fighting. So, I say ok. So, one day a guy knocks at my door. His name was Ron Balicki. He is one of the best Kali stick fighters in the world. So, every single day from three hour to whatever it was, we did stick fighting. I learn to go with these things to be pretty good. We learn night fighting, we learn a lot of stuff and I went to Australia. I say to my trainer who work for the Special Operations Resistance Team, try to kill me so every day, he tried to kill me and never did. What you see in the movie is a very little part of the stick fighting because sometimes you do things for a movie which are not in the movie. Movie can be two hours or not. We did a lot of sticks fighting, a lot of fighting. So I was very good shape in the movie because when you take your shirt off and play this kind of character you should be in good shape. So, it was good and it was a very physical movie, far harsher than I ever made. We shoot most in the night all this stuff which sounds good, work and fight at night. That is for the fighting.

Q : You seem to be used to play characters with a dual personality. How did you prepare for this role? How did you manage to reinvent this classic monster?

Eckhart : well it was not me. I just read the script. Stuart Beattie who is the writer and director, it is his story. He imagined all the things, the gargoyles and the demons. He imagined the stick fighting. Stuart took martial arts , he is a black belt and while he is getting his black belt, he did a little stick fighting and he says it will be cool to be in the movie so that is how stick fighting got in the movie. You know as an actor, I like to do a lot of things. People ask if you want to do this or to do that. I’m an actor. I do anything whether it is a good or bad guy. It doesn’t matter for me. I just like to act. It is a different thing for me. It puts me in a different atmosphere and I work with different people. I have to have different thoughts. In terms of giving the character I thought really people ask me did you look at other people who have played Frankenstein before. It is not how I work. I said it is not I feel like this. When I feel like I am in love and nobody wanted me. I tried to go down and tried to found some spot to do that. As far as you know I Frankenstein portrayed a character in the movie that said that Frankenstein nobody in the world knows him. There is a lot of pressure on that. It was scary because a lot of people can be mad. They have their idea of what Frankenstein is right just as they have their opinion about who must play Batman or Superman. Everybody has his own idea.

Q : What is yours ?

Eckhart : I love Ben Affleck. I thought it is a very good choice. I thought Ben is great but you know you can’t please everybody. So you will see, it will be interesting to see what people think. I think people who love Mary Shelley will not be so happy but kids they don’t have any idea about this. They will be happier, they will love the stick fighting. They will love the beautiful gargoyles and all that. Look at the audience today, they want that, they love that. What they will love about this movie is this climate, it’s atypical, the journey of life. It’s about my life, your life of what you want to do with your life. Having the courage to listen to your instinct, listen to yourself and having the courage to fall through and live your dream. To me, it is all is about, letting go to your parents and other shits and becoming your own person. It is about good and evil. I think the base of this movie it is very solid and made with respect. It is probably more that you want to know.

Q : You played a bad guy in the movie The Dark knight and now you have a scary role in I Frankenstein. Do you find pleasure in this type of role?

Eckhart : I like dressing up for characters because you know that all theaters they have a mask, they have a sad face. If with you guys we do an exercise and put on a mask and then we have different masks and become a new character maybe as in an acting school, it is unbelievable what happens to you. You become a totally different person depending on what your mask was. So you are sitting in make up for two or three hours every morning. You are staring in a mirror and they will put on this on your face and on whatever it can be. You become to be hungry. After two hours, you are nervous. That’s what happens. So, the claws are good too. You put the costume on and this has such an impact on your body and on your thoughts and that helps. So when you play a character who does not have some scars you have make up and to look as something else to figure out why he is like this. So when I look at this person, I can look at his past. You must play games with yourself. With two faces the idea was nobody knows what the two faces look like. The look is generated by computer. Only Christopher Nolan knows how it will look. When I saw The Dark knight for the first time I was wow. It was impressive. It was totally insane. That was cool like the gargoyles in this movie, nobody knows how it will look . The director said look back and there is nothing back there. How I will look? When I see this movie, these beautiful gargoyles who are coming in and picking you up, their strength it is like wow. You just don’t know how it will be like.

Q : We talk about the Mary Shelley’s book but this movie is based on a comic book, did you know it ?

Eckhart : Yes, it was the base of his conception. Stuart takes the comic book and he said it was his inspiration as the Mary Shelley’s book. It is all about the vision that Stuart has of this world. Stuart can see the rules in this world. There are a lot of rules in this movie. The demons die when this happen. It come with all Stuart thinks of. He has changed everything. It’s totally different.

Q : Did you read some comic books ?

Eckhart : Let’s see. I have read some Harvey Dent comic books. I am not a huge comic book fan. I like them but I think that comic books are good for this kind of movie and for the The Dark Knight because they are very heroic. They are black and white. There is no grey in comic books. It is for example, I will kill you or you will kill me, we will have sex. Comic books generally have a strong message. The guys are very old school. There is a strength in comic books that I think works well for the movies. So when some comic books are about women obviously it is also the same thing. I don’t know about Angelina Jolie in Wanted but she looks great.

Q : What was the more difficult scenes in this movie for you?

Eckhart : it was these with the sticks. They were very dangerous and hard because when you are in a movie you are acting and not pretending and want to kill that guy. So you like as this and you heading hard because stopping at a certain point and feel sometimes as a sack of potatoes and they said to you to make it again. Imagine that you are hurting. You must be very precise with the guys which they don’t how to do it, it’s easy. But when you put two actors who just learned it, it is impossible. It is very difficult. It was the hardest thing in this movie.

Q : Did you get hurt ?

Eckhart : yes. I remember breaking my arm in this movie and jumping from a rock, hitting the ground and they say keep on shooting and this is in the movie. I went to the doctor and I finished the movie with a broken arm because you cannot afford to be hurt in this kind of movie.

Q : Do you think that you are not too old for this kind of movie ?

Eckhart : no

Q : Will you play in more independent movies?

Eckhart : it is interesting about to be old, I can be old but I can still kick your ass. It is not because you make one movie that you cannot make another one. I can do them all. Why don’t’ I try to direct or to produce, write a song… ? It’s you who say that I cannot do that. I can do everything I want.

Q : What is your next project ?

Eckhart : I don’t know if you can call it an action movie. It’s a movie called Incarnate, I play a broken down alcoholic in a wheelchair and he has to go. It’s kind of Harvey Dent two faces. He helps people. It is a very small movie and I like the character. Most of the reasons why I do a movie are for the character. The challenge to be in a wheelchair is fun or the director says all that you must do is to use this sticks. So I will be in a wheelchair. I don’t know what I will do after. I think you guys hear about London is falling but I don’t know about that. So, maybe I will do that. Incarnate will be a fun movie, it is a horror movie. I don’t know if you call I Frankenstein a horror movie, this is more a fantasy and action movie. After horror, I did it all. It is no more that I can do. I am retired (joking). I’m only forty five. I have ten more years before. It is something you must think about.

Q : I have a question about Harvey Dent. There will be an another one in a few years?

Eckhart :I think if they did, I don’t know if I will be in it. I think it will be someone else. They will reinvent the role. It is interesting because The Dark kight and The Dark knight Rises that all Chris (Christopher Nolan) and he is a such brain. He is so good. I don’t know where they want to go with it. I was surprised that they made a movie with Batman and Superman together. It will be interesting. I think they went to Harvey Dent to someone else. They will reinvent him. I don’t know if people want to see that.

Avec tous nos remerciements à Alexia Pépin et Zvi David Fajol de l’agence WayToBlue
Propos recueillis par Marie Laure
Transcription et traduction : Mulder
Montage video: Mulder