Aaron Eckhart and director Jonathan Liebesman worked together to shoot a short version of Battle: Los Angeles to use to pitch the alien invasion film, but initially Eckhart wasn't actually sold on starring in an alien film. "I got the script and my agent, it was kind of like an alien movie, and I was like [mumbling] and she says, 'Go meet this guy Jonathan.' Jonathan didn't have the job yet, but he was making a play for it. So I met him and he had done all these sort of mock-ups with the aliens on his computer, just using kind of generic software, very impressive stuff. At the end, Jonathan showed me a page of youtube.com and it was some Marines going house to house through Fallujah, and it was both organized yet chaotic because it was unpredictable. These guys showed their training and they showed their youth. And Jonathan said, ‘This is what the movie is going to look like.’ And right then and there I said, 'I'm in. I'll die for this part.'"
"I feel like through the filming to the final cut that we achieved that goal. The goal was this is a war movie, a documentary kind of war movie with aliens in it. For me, I was like a kid in a candy store," explained Eckhart at the LA press day for the Columbia Pictures film.
Battle: Los Angeles is certainly not the first alien invasion film. Hollywood's long been fascinated by the idea of creatures from outer space coming to Earth and attacking humans. Asked why it is these stories still continue to fascinate audiences, Eckhart replied, "Because I feel - and I'm just an actor - I feel that the question hasn't been answered about space yet. There's a lot of questions that haven't been answered and so that leaves our imaginations to run free. This movie can be non-judgmental or you can have a non-judgmental foe, a foe that comes from another [planet]. It's a completely imaginary foe, whereas that works for us in this context because it is a war movie. We are going to war and we're shooting and killing things, but we have no personal relationship with those, other than our imagination. So I think it can be pure entertainment, which is good. Nobody is really getting hurt in the movie. I mean, there are some deaths, but they're understandable."
"I don't know, it just continues to fascinate people. What's fascinating to me about it is, not only is it a war movie, but it's also about the coming of age of a group of young Marines. It's about coming together, sticking together. It's about personal survival. It's about learning and helping each other. I think there are a lot of themes running through the film that are very positive and I think that are good for young people to see."
Eckhart and the rest of the Battle: Los Angeles actors who play Marines went through extensive training in order to, as accurately as possible, play members of the military in the film. Eckhart credits that intense physical training with helping to make Battle: Los Angeles feel authentic as a war movie. "I thought first and foremost the training was the most important thing," said Eckhart. "So I trained for months before, working with weaponry and with the physical aspects of being a Marine in this situation. Also, getting to know the Marines, getting to know the hierarchy, the mentality, the psychology. Then, as you know, we went through a boot camp."
"We did three weeks in the middle of Louisiana, hotter than hell, lived in a tent, slept next to each other. We ate in rank, all that sort of thing, showered, the whole deal. Which was interesting because it went from a bunch of actors that didn't know each other, some who had experience and some who didn't, and all of a sudden now we had to forget that we were actors and go into a pretty regimented workout scheme. It was interesting how far some actors would go and how much they would buy into it and believe it, because when you're out there, I'm yelling at you in character and the actor is like, 'Dude, I'm just an actor.' It was a good way for us to erase our sort of real lives and get into character, which helped immensely in the movie."
Going all the way to Louisiana to shoot a movie that takes place in Los Angeles sounds strange, but there's financial reasons and other considerations that made filming there make the most sense. "It's better than Bulgaria, man," said Eckhart, laughing, when asked about the shooting locations. "I'm going to go do a movie next month in Brussels and Montreal. It's supposed to be over there, so that's good. First of all, you couldn't have made this movie here. It would've just been a $200 million movie - and the citizens of Santa Monica would've killed us. [...]Moviemaking just doesn't happen in Los Angeles anymore. Louisiana, because they just don't have the density of population, we were able to do things there, we locked up streets for months. Everybody was pretty good with it. I mean, they were happy to have the work, actually."
Eckhart said the cast and filmmakers took care in making sure they stayed true to the values of the Marine Corps. "I hope that it shows some sort of reflection, some sort of history, a toll that it's taken. This movie, in my opinion, is meant to be a love letter to the Marines. We had their full cooperation. They had my full cooperation. I tried to get it right. I think this movie is very reverent towards the military and reverent towards the ranks, both the officers and the Marines and the grunts. I don't see how any Marine can see this movie and feel like they've been at all taken advantage of. I think this is going to be an oo-rah moment for them. I'm going to go to Quantico. I'm going down to San Diego and show the film for them. These guys are going to love this movie," said Eckhart.
Eckhart admits he absolutely loved the idea of starring in a good, old-fashioned sort of war movie. "In fact, this is the first character that I've ever had in my movie making experience where on the last day I was sad. I really love this character, as you can see. I usually wear green. I keep my hair short. I can't wait if this movie has a sequel because I loved my M4. I loved the guys. I loved the weaponry, the tanks. I love the bravado. I love the companionship and I do love war movies. I mean, every kid, I still have to do a Western in my career. I've done a kind of war movie now. I've got to play a poker movie, a guy where I play poker. I always say an actor should be able to do three things, shoot a gun, ride a horse and play cards. So I've always wanted to do this. I'm a physical guy. I love sports. So, to jump around, run around…I broke my arm on this movie doing a stunt. I was doing a stunt and I jumped off a seven foot thing and landed and broke my arm and kept on going. I did the whole last half of the movie with a broken arm, which again, I thought was fun," revealed Eckhart.
Eckhart continued, "There were days where we shot 20,000 rounds in a day. We shot this movie in Louisiana and I remember being up at three o'clock in the morning in Shreveport on top of a Humvee with a .50 cal, going through the streets and me just going, 'BOOM!' Now, to you that might not seem like fun, but to me it was blast."
* * * * * *
Battle: Los Angeles hits theaters on March 11, 2011.
