The amount of fan mail Aaron Eckhart's had to deal with this summer (and is actually still dealing with) has soared, but he's not complaining. As Harvey Dent/TwoFace in The Dark Knight, Eckhart's recognition factor has also reached new levels thanks to the enormous popularity of the second Batman movie from director Christopher Nolan. Even Eckhart's parents saw The Dark Knight, which now rests at the number 2 spot on the all-time biggest grossing film list, 12 times. However, if Eckhart has his way, his parents probably won't be seeing his new film, Towelhead, at all.
"It's such a great movie that I want them to see it…if they weren't my parents, I would want them to see it. Being my parents, they're kind of right now in a holding pattern. I told them that they're maybe not allowed to see this one. But they're adults, they can do what they like. I think it's different if they're your parents. This isn't the only movie that I've made that's been sort of difficult for my parents to see. I don't think they ever saw Your Friends & Neighbors," said Eckhart.
Towelhead features newcomer Summer Bishil as Jasira, a 13 year old girl who's sent to live with her divorced Lebanese father in Houston. Eckhart plays an Army reservist and neighbor of Jasira's who hires the young teen to babysit his son and then takes an inappropriate – and illegal - sexual interest in the young girl.
The role was a very difficult one for Eckhart to play. "For me, it was especially hard only because I had to physically do things that for me to do with a child, 13 years old, however you want to slice it, was difficult for me," explained Eckhart. "Even though Summer's obviously 18, the audience looks at her as a 13 year old and I had to look at her as a 13 year old so that was difficult. But I think we handled it tastefully and weren't too egregious, and I think it served the story."
Eckhart has an interesting take on why his character behaves the way he does. "Because, and this is another reason for me to do the movie, is there's…think of all around the world, guys that have made choices young in life and not necessarily satisfied with those choices, didn't feel like they did enough or they'd gone far enough or realized enough in their life and their jobs. They're looking at their life and not seeing what they wanted. Their dreams have faded. And having to live the rest of your life with that, coming home, doing this, blah blah blah, on that cul de sac and not seeing a way out, I look at that as a black and white existence, monotone. Jasira is color. She's Fuji Film, Kodak Ektachrome color vibrancy. She awakes in him his inner child, what he used to be, all those feelings and senses, all the five senses, the music and hearing and taste and sound and adventure. He finds a reason to live, a reason to get out of bed. I think at that point, and it doesn't happen immediately either, it happens over time and he tries to quell the feelings that he has and tries to do the right thing, but he's taken over. I think at that point she no longer becomes a 13 year old or a babysitter or the neighbor. She becomes his, to use a Jungian term, his anima."
But tackling his character Travis' sexual relationship with Bishil's character wasn't the only difficult aspect of the film for Eckhart. Travis is also a racist which meant the dialogue Eckhart had to say was also disturbing. "But you have to say it without wincing," said Eckhart. "It's ugly. You say it. You say it. You believe it and you say it and you do it. That's what you do. That's what drama's all about. I don’t necessarily like to hear it and I don't like to say it, but that's who my character was. You have to justify it as your character. That's the movie you're making."
"You have to look at the bigger picture and say, 'This is the movie we're making.' It's hard for Peter [Macdissi] as Rifat (Jasira's dad) to do what he does. We had many discussions with Peter and I, all the characters, what Maria [Bello] has to do and Toni [Collette], to say things like that and just be so malicious about it. I gotta sell this film. Sometimes it's hard in the theater hearing that. I've been in the theater where things have been said and you're sitting next to the person it's being said about, it's very difficult. It's ugly."
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Towelhead hits theaters on September 12, 2008 and is rated R for strong disturbing sexual content and abuse involving a young teen, and for language.
