The Dark Knight and Olympus Has Fallen star on transforming himself for his gritty new boxing movie.
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Aaron Eckhart: Oh yeah.
In Louisiana, yeah.
We saw one of the big battle scenes.
We had some battle scenes in that movie.
I honestly felt the way that we filmed that movie, that we were at war.
What did you know about these guys, Kevin and Vinny, before you came onto this?
I did know that Kevin was Tysons trainer.
I didnt know that Vinny was five-time champ.
Although Vinny fought in Vegas and fought some big fighters, I think he was definitely a stylistic fighter.
I mean we got so much help filming from the locals, and they were so passionate.
All those crowd scenes they showed up and for 12 hours were just yelling.
I didnt know that Kevin was a fighter.
I didnt know he existed.
But then I became quite knowledgeable about him.
I did all my research, hes a fascinating character because he was a fighter before.
He still wanted to continue his fighting career.
Then Don King basically came in and Tyson fired Kevin, and broke him.
Basically he lost his reputation.
He was humiliated and embarrassed and thats why this movie is so great.
Vinnys trainer told him he should quit the game and these two meet, they get themselves back up.
Its a great comeback story, everybody loves that, a comeback story.
Thats how I got my sort of real life experience for the film.
You box too as a hobby?
Yeah, I box as a training and a fitness thing.
Im not a fighter.
Its helped me, its difficult to throw a punch correctly.
Its extremely hard to make that look real.
Miles did a great job.
For me, Ive done the mitts for 20 years.
It made it really easy for me to do the movie in that sense.
The sacred bond between fighter and trainer.
I had experience with that.
Youve played rugged guys, you play romantic leads.
You had to change that for this film.
I consider myself more of a character actor.
Thats how I started my film career.
Let me rephrase that.
We havent seen you transform quite like this.
Yeah, Ive done it, and maybe those films got more attention.
But my purpose as an actor has been to serve the authors intent and serve the directors intent.
Ive never gone out there and have a go at be the golden boy.
I am much more interested in telling the story and trying to my best job I can.
Im just trying to tell a story I want to tell.
I had to get peoples belief back in me again, I had to challenge myself.
I had to do something new.
That got me to this movie.
Did I have a little fire under my ass?
Im an actor, I have a career.
Im still very hungry about acting and filmmaking in general and storytelling, but careers go different ways.
IfFrankensteinworked it wouldve done good things for me.
It wouldve allowed me to do other things, but it didnt.
OrBattle: Los Angeles.
Youre always trying to get somewhere, and maybe the point is dont take a stab at get somewhere.
Just take a stab at do good work.
That being said, I worked my ass off forI, Frankenstein.
I worked as hard inI, Frankensteinas I did in this movie, easy.
OrBattle: Los Angelesor whatever they are.
I always put my heart and soul into things, but you just never know whats going to work.
I worked hard for this movie.
Its my duty as an actor to embody that character.
I would never go in there and say, Well, I cant do this.
Ive never shied away from being ugly on film and being undesirable on film.
Thats a good way of describing a leading man.
Maybe Ive played romantic characters like inNo Reservationsor whatever, but thats just because thats what the character is.
Were all human and were all vain to some degree.
Do you learn early on as an actor to let go of that vanity?
I said, No.
I went and gained 50 pounds.
I went and got a red mustache and played that character (inYour Friends & Neighbors).
That set me off and said, No, Im not going to play by these rules.
I like to look undesirable in film.
I dont give a shit what I look like in film.
What I want to do is, be the part.
Whatever that takes, if it means looking good and fit thats what I do.
Its about creating energy and the circumstances of the other actors and creating a sense of reality.
In this movie we did it.
Theres a real sense of reality in this thing.
Ben (Younger, writer and director) wrote a great script, Vinnys life is electric.
Its all about charisma.
Youre going to be 20 million bucks a picture on 4,000 screens.
Because everybodys going to go, Wow, look at that guys point of view.
Thats been proven over and over again.
Because creativity and intelligence are attractive.
Thats why Vinny is so electric.
Thats why this movie is great, because its electric.
Youre like, Dude, this guy broke his head, had screws in his head.
Against everybodys life and potentially paralysis, he went back and became middle weight champion of the world.
Whos going to do that?
Were almost out of time.
They announcedAngel has Fallenis going to go into production.
Are you doing that?
Oh, no, no.
The president is now playing golf.
Im in my presidential library, Im playing golf, and Im out of danger.
Yeah, I have nothing to do with that.
(Note: this interview was conducted shortly before the U.S. presidential election took place.)
Yeah, mostly its on Twitter or something like that.
Its interesting, what people say to me about being the president or whatever.
Now, the movies not about me.
They say, Well, did you model them?
I say, No, I didnt model off anybody.
Sort of the noble qualities were fighting against today in our presidential election.
Thats what I wanted to embody with Asher.
I get a lot of Aaron Eckhart for President and Morgan Freeman as Vice President.
Or vice-versa, whatever it is.
Lets take Morgan for this example, as president.
Thats what we want.
In fact, my agent told me about that yesterday, that theyre going to do another one.
Its about social issues, its about a city being under siege.
We all have those feelings today.
I mean, to me thats still a very pertinent movie.
Its not a jokey movie.
Theres no humor, when people are in danger, theyre really in danger.
When people are dying, they have real feelings in that movie.
Im not going to say, Im never going to be in those movies.
I would like to make a run at solve a problem, plus who is going to those movies?
Looking for the courage to get through adolescence, to see what the purpose of life is.
I dont know what those movies now are going for now.
What are they trying to teach us?
Or is it just about box office?
Thats why I think the (Dark Knight) trilogy is the gold standard.
Because Chris asks questions and tried to solve the questions.
LikeRocky, which is not a superhero movie, but I remember whenRockychanged my life.Star Wars, same thing.
Thats why the firstStar Warswas so effective.
I dont know what Im going to learn from the superhero movies today.
I like to see the ones that are asking some questions, trying to solve them through the story.
Bleed for Thisis out in theaters Friday (November 18).
