Aaron Eckhart

My trainer is is teaching me how to um dismember people in in many different ways. I could rip your eyes out at once and then break your neck at the same time.

Why did this go wrong? I'm Oliver Trevena here at the Young Hollywood Studio with this handsome young man. How are you, Aaron Eckhart? Thanks for stopping in.

Yes, my pleasure to be here. I wish I got the memo that you were to be dressed like this and I would have.

Well, I look like a waiter so it's perfect. I could, you know, serve you coffee. Every time I dress like this, I think people want me to drive them around.

I think you look very debonair. Um and in great shape. I do Jiu-Jitsu for two hours in the morning. On the beach. Yeah. And notice my hands are all cut up for that. And uh that I really like. So my trainer is is teaching me how to um dismember people in in many different ways.

Okay. Yeah. Then I'll make sure this one's very smoothly. I won't say anything inappropriate. He taught me something this morning that was just brutal.

Okay, that's fine. I'm just going to sit here and smile. I could I could rip your eyes out at once and then break your neck at the same time.

Why did this go wrong? We were getting on so well and now we're on to that conversation. Um talking about ripping eyes out and breaking necks, Battle Los Angeles, your new movie, which looks amazing.

You cannot lose Los Angeles. I call it a war movie, you know. Yeah. Uh there are aliens in it but really it's um we set out to make like a documentary style war movie. Yes, we are fighting aliens and that'll be fun for all the kids and everybody for their science fiction, you know, kind of fix.

And to ruin their sleep at night.

Exactly. To create nightmares. Well, you know, kids too soft these days. Yeah. Harden them up. Get on the beach doing Jiu-Jitsu in the morning. I'll break their necks.

And it was it was a grueling to get in shape for it, right? Everyone, right? You've done these boot camps.

Yeah, we went three weeks of boot camp in the dead of summer in Louisiana. Full gear. Um you know, did everything in a rank, you know, ate together, trained together, slept together, showered together, whole thing.

And then a lot of the stunts and stuff, did you were you doing your own stunts?

Yeah, for the most part we were all doing our own stunts. Um you know, everybody was knocking a tooth out. You'd say, "Where's so and so?" Oh, he's at the dentist. Or you know, twisted an ankle. I broke my arm doing a stunt. What happened was I saw this beautiful orange plume of, you know, flame or whatever it is, this beautiful fireball that was going up, the stunt did or the pyros did. And I looked at it and I thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool if I like went jump through that like Michael Jordan, you know, when he's you know, doing his spread leg dunk, you know?" That'd be cool. So I said to the camera man, I said, "Hey, look when that goes off, I'm going to do this." And um I slipped, fell seven feet right on my head and my arm just goes crack.

Ouch. Yeah. And you're quite a well traveled uh person. You were saying earlier that you've lived in London and you Hawaii, I read as well, right?

Yeah, I was torn from my from my um surfboard when I was 13 and uh moved to England. I lived in Ripley where I spent four years there. Then I moved to Australia. Then I lived in Hawaii like you said. I lived in France and Switzerland for two years. And um and went to school in New York and then traveled with my job.

And you enjoy your plane trips as well? You were saying.

Yes, today I had a well, yeah, death defying plane trip. In fact, I didn't tell you. This was um we had one of those where the plane was, you know, ten feet from the ground and the the wings were wobbling and and then all of a sudden you, you know, you're thrust back and the engines are whining and the woman next to me was uh she says uh she's going to hold my hand. People were screaming and stuff like that.

She probably recognized you and that had no relevance. She was probably just waiting for the right moment all flight to say that. And she's like, "Great, the plane's going down. Oh, Jen."

Then she offered me some gum. So that didn't I was wondering about that. I was like, "Why if we're about to die, would you offer me?" I took it.

Thanks for stopping by the studio. Pleasure to have you and uh looking forward to seeing Battle of the Bay.

Thank you very much. Thanks, buddy.