An actor’s reservations

AARON Eckhart, who made his name playing jerks in “Your Friends & Neighbors,” “In the Company of Men,” and “Thank You for Smoking,” will star in Alan Ball’s feature directorial debut, “Nothing Is Private.” (He’s a “consummate director,” says Eckhart.)

He’ll play Harvey “Two-Face” Dent in next summer’s Batman flick “The Dark Knight.” We caught up with him in a New York hotel room, near the end of the first day of a press junket for “No Reservations,” in which he starts opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones. He was cheery.

Did you get any particularly stupid questions today?

No! I thought Catherine had some odd questions or comments.

She got weird comments?

Someone had heard she washed her hair with caviar or something.

I assume she said no.

Yeah. Other than that it’s been pretty dry.

But did you have particularly excellent questions today?

Oh, if you’re talking about insightful and profound, there was a couple. The general color was talking about the meaning of life. That sort of stuff.

And did you figure out the meaning of life?

No. But we felt the meaning of this film was to heal.

Really?

I dunno. That came up -- about how food bridges relationships.

The film made me want to kill myself. It’s very sweet, though. Perhaps it’s a personal reaction to a movie about a beautiful single woman with an enormous Manhattan apartment and attractive men throwing themselves at her.

It is a sweet film. That’s part of its charm. It’s not often that you see a sweet film that the whole family can enjoy on whatever level and still has a heart. I like that. It’s not often I’m involved with movies like that.

Quite so. Not that your movies have been anti-family. Although ...

And some of them will be. They won’t be pinned down to one genre. And with this movie I like the fact that we kept it pretty mainstream.

Yes, how did you learn to play a narcissistic bastard?

Well -- learned to do it? I just said the words. Neil [LaBute]’s the one at home alone writing the script. Actors have the luxury of thinking of other things while saying other things. I can be thinking of something joyful while shooting someone. So for an actor I don’t think it’s as telling about their personalities as the authors. You have to go back to the root, and it’s usually the writers. They don’t let actors write.

Just Ethan Hawke.

Yes. His novels.

Have you ever learned anything true about yourself from talking to a journalist?

I’ve learned things talking to journalists, but I’m trying to get over it. I’m trying to block it out of my mind.

Something went horribly wrong?

No. I think I’ve learned that everyone has their own agenda and people have to serve different masters and everyone has an angle.

It’s a horrible thing to be misrepresented.

Yes, it is. It’s part of the business.

More and more. How would that happen to you?

I don’t know why they do it, frankly, at all. I think you can make your point -- I think being a writer, I think some of these publications, well, I’m dealing with high-quality writers. I think the temptation in an article is to, how should I say, it is as important sometimes for a director to be a part of the movies as it is the actors. And I think sometimes a writer, they have their auteurship in their writings, and their way of presenting their words is second to the person or thing they’re talking about. They want to be represented in the piece. In doing that sometimes it’s at the expense of the person they’re writing about. Do you see what I’m saying? But I don’t know if I’ve learned anything from what I’ve said.

There’s a potential blowback at the end -- not like therapy.

I think the danger is in forgetting that you are having professional rapport. Even though you’re inviting these people into your home, trusting them in intimate spaces like your home or doing things with them like an activity that’s personal to you, surfing or whatever it is, that you open up and you get burned.

It’s like a bad relationship.

Except the whole world doesn’t hear about your relationship. But everybody’s reading things like “Really, did you have to say that?” Other than that, I’m happy to do press.

Do you know what you’re doing? Is there some sort of guiding plan behind all this?

I’ve done very different movies that haven’t come out. So, no. I need some guidance. No, I feel like there’s things I personally want to do. I like where I’m at here with romantic comedies. I like to do -- who knows what I’d like to do? Every time I say that I do the exact opposite. I just want to be involved with things where I can hold my head up. And be proud that I’m a part of that movie. That’s really my only guidance.

Is that a hard thing to do? With the journey from script to studio, how do you tell?

The cast pedigree, the script, the producers that won Academy Awards, “The studio wants to go in a new direction.” So it doesn’t turn out. And you just can’t blame yourself, because there’s too many cooks. Too many ways the movie could have gone wrong. And a lot that could go right!

So I don’t think you could carry the burden yourself. And that is a lesson I’ve learned. It becomes burdensome. And you become frightened to go back in that genre or work with these people again. And maybe that movie didn’t work out but you just change your take on every movie. Every week there’s a flop! You just can’t be responsible for those.

It’s like an athlete -- if you can only hit the ball a third of the time, you’re doing great.