Aaron Eckhart Talks Shark Movie Deep Water: ‘I’ve Been Through It in Real Life’ | Interview
Deep Water star Aaron Eckhart spoke to ComingSoon editor-in-chief Tyler Treese about his new shark movie. Eckhart discussed reuniting with director Renny Harlin, using his imagination in the disaster film, and why he prefers to work with familiar directors at this point in his career. Deep Water is out in theaters on May 1 from Magenta Light Studios.
“A flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai goes down in the middle of the Pacific. After surviving the crash, the survivors soon discover they’re not alone, and they must survive the shark-infested waters,” says the official synopsis for Deep Water.
Tyler Treese: Aaron, congrats on Deep Water. What was most exciting for you about getting to do a shark movie? Especially with Renny Harlan, who had already made a great shark movie, so he has experience in this field.
Aaron Eckhart: Yeah. It’s a plane crash shark movie [laughs], so you get hit by two scary things at once. I really liked that about it. Renny, I worked with him before, and I really enjoy working with him. He’s a total pro, and obviously, as you say, he’s very experienced in this genre. In fact, he could be one of the best in the genre. So that was fun.
Then to work with Sir Ben Kingsley again, I’ve worked with him before, and that was a lot of fun. I think this is a movie where the audience can have a lot of fun watching it. And so when you’re working like that, having that in mind, it’s a lot of fun making it.
We’ve come a long way since Jaws, and having the shark stand-in not working and breaking down all the time. So what did you have to react to when you’re filming these shark scenes? Was there anything physical to stand in, or how was that experience?
You know, it’s difficult. The answer to that is no. Basically, you’re in a pool, and you have to use the fourth wall, your imagination. I’m trying to remember if we had a fin in the water or anything like that, but when it really comes down to it, you’re using your imagination. You’re using the energy of the other actors and of Renny, and obviously, whatever you’ve prepared for that moment. But you certainly don’t have a big shark-looking object in the water. If you ever do, it would just be like the head of a shark on a stick or something, you know? I think that’s where we were at. So, it’s not method acting. In other words, you’re not out there with a shark [laughs].
You mentioned that you had worked with Ben Kingsley before. You guys did Suspect Zero. That was over two decades ago. So how was it reuniting with him? Was that chemistry still there, or how was that experience?
It’s an interesting question. I was looking forward to it. Obviously, it’s been a long time. We had the best time in that cockpit working off each other, working the scenario with Renny. We flew to the Canary Islands. We were there for a week in the cockpit together, and we just had a blast.
I mean, between doing all the plane stuff, Sir Ben is a pro, right? So here you have, I don’t know, 10, 12, 15 pages of basically pilot talk, and reacting to buttons and this and check this, and you don’t do all that sort of stuff. You gotta be on point for that, you know? You’re doing it fast, and you’re doing it supposed to be unconsciously, and you’re doing a few things at the same time. Sir Ben, it was beautiful to have him there, and in between takes, we talked about his Shakespearean experiences and doing Hamlet and all this sort of stuff. And I couldn’t have had a better time with him. I appreciated him, and he was there for me. Hopefully, I was there for that, for him.
It’s incredible that Sir Kingsley is 82. He still commands the screen and is still firing on all cylinders in Deep Water. It’s incredible.
Well, listen, not only that, but he had just come from a movie, and as soon as he wrapped this movie, he was going to another movie. I mean, his schedule is tight. So, I think he relishes it totally prepared, totally professional, totally on point. An inspiration to work with in the sense that you’re working with one of the best, so you’re always trying to soak up everything he’s given you consciously and unconsciously.
If you have any questions… For example, we were talking about Hamlet and his experiences, and then we all of a sudden dropped into pentameter, and it was great. Because I’m not a Shakespearean actor. Here I am sitting in the cockpit for several hours with one of the greats, and he’s talking to me about the meter and what the meaning is, and this, and how he got over it, where he came from, and how what he considers himself to be.
I relish that. The same thing with Sully, with Tom Hanks, and that sort of thing. You find yourself with really the best and being able to talk to them and them answer your questions and stuff. So it was a great experience.
You just mentioned Sully, which you also played a first officer. Did that past role in that knowledge kind of help you for this first third of Deep Water, which is all plane-based, because you do have to look like you know what you’re doing in the cockpit?
Yeah. On Sully, Clint flew Tom and I down up to the Bay Area. We got inside a simulator, and so we had that experience together. Of course, my own research and the cockpit, and actually the internet is fantastic, YouTube, because you would never know it, but there are thousands of pilots out there in the world who just record themselves flying, going through all the buttons, every cockpit panel of every plane. So, I would watch hours of that, and just pick up how they did the buttons, what they were concerned about, what this did, and auxiliary this and that.
When I was doing Sully, I started taking private plane lessons when we were in… I think Atlanta, no, no, I did that on Olympus Has Fallen. I started learning to fly. So I’ve had time in the cockpit myself. All that obviously shapes how you sit in the seat and how you adjust the knobs and what’s first and what’s second, how you look at the panel, and all that crap.
So yeah, it helped. I liked it. Then obviously, we had a pro pilot with Renny there at the monitors, and he would yell at us and tell us what to do. So, somehow, between editing and all that crap, it all comes together.
I read you’re playing another pilot in the film Midair coming up. That’s different because it’s like a military cargo aircraft that gets hijacked by terrorists. What can we expect from that film? You’re really into the pilots.
I mean, let’s see, see if we do that, if I do that movie or not. But yeah, there’s something to be said for the drama of a pilot, because the drama’s always there. Even when you’re in the relaxed mode, you’ve got how many souls on board, and you’re dealing with computers, you’re dealing with air and how it goes over the wing, and you’re up in space and blah, blah, blah. So you’re always sort of in Condition Yellow or Condition Orange. I think audiences like [the idea of] what are the consequences of failure in the air?
That’s, by the way, one of the reasons why I discontinued my pilot certification was because I said, “Who am I fooling? I’m gonna be up here on my own. I’m gonna kill myself, you know?” The number one failure in personal aviation is failure to fill up the gas tank. So it’s as easy as that to get in trouble up there, you know, forget all the other stuff that could go wrong.
Obviously, everybody flies, so everybody’s familiar with and gone through mentally and emotionally. You know, what happens if something happens to this plane? I think there was an engine that just blew the other day somewhere. And so we’re all sort of familiar with this pattern. So I think audiences like it.
Then obviously with the shark, it’s the same thing. You know, most of us have been to the beach, you go swimming, you know you can’t see through the water. You have things bumping into you. So, it makes for a good movie that way. I’ve been surfing. I’ve been surfing, and there have been sharks. You see a fin come up, there’s no waves. At this particular time, I was surfing in Santa Cruz, and we’re out there with a couple of buddies, and there’s basically no waves. Then all of a sudden you see the fin, 15 yards away from you or whatever, and then you see what happens. So, I’ve been through it in real life.
You mentioned that you’ve worked with Renny again. You guys did The Bricklayer together. When you get to work with the director multiple times, how helpful is that as an actor? Because you kind of know what he expects and you know what you’re getting into. So how does that help you, that familiarity with Renny?
I love it because I already know I can walk up to set and Renny is gonna be happy to see me. He knows what I can do. He knows what I want, what I don’t want. I know what he wants, how to talk to him, what I can get away with, and what I can’t get away with. I get to know his family, I get to know his patterns and his rhythms, and really, that puts you at ease. In fact, all the directors I’m working with this year I’ve worked with before, maybe except one, and it’s just a huge relief because think about going to school on the first day, every single movie. That’s for 30 years, and some directors are strung differently than others.
The question really comes down to how do I work best? How do I want to be treated in the sense that, how do you get the best outta me? What can a director do to the knobs and the buttons and all that sort of stuff? How do I react? It’s interesting, I’ve been able to work with some great actors and directors, and how does Clint talk to actors versus how does Sean Penn talk to directors? How does somebody else talk to directors? They all have their own deal going on, and you have to now measure that and go, “Okay, how do I get the best outta me with what I’ve got here?”
Working with Renny, again, I don’t have to play that game. In fact, Renny and I are supposed to work again together. So, hopefully we’ll just keep on doing that and getting good results, you know? So anyway, it’s a long way of saying, I dig it.
Yeah, that’s great. I hope you guys do work again and together. Deep Water ticked off “shark movie” for your to-do list. Are there any other genres or a type of character that you haven’t gotten to play yet that you’d like to do in the future?
Yeah. Race car driver would be fun, and I don’t know that I’ve done a cowboy movie where I’ve starred in it and been on a horse the whole time. That would be good for me. I think that’s more realistic than the race car deal [laughs].
But I’ve ticked the boxes right now. The movies that I do, that I choose to do, I’m sort of… I don’t know if I’m in Hollywood or not. Nobody knows, but it’s the ones that I just wanna have fun go do and the ones where I go, “Yeah, that’d be fun to do,” and that would be fun to do in the Canary Islands or wherever it is.
It’s really no more complicated than that. I enjoy working, and I enjoy working with directors I’ve already worked with, so that’s how I do it. I don’t really have a to-do list or a bucket list on acting. It’s really about working with directors that will try to get the best outta me, who will push me, and not give me too much grief.
Do you have a favorite Shark movie other than Deep Water?
Well, I don’t think about shark movies that much, but I guess it would be Jaws only because it was the one that I watched in the seventies. There was a few movies in the seventies that I watched that were very influential in my life. One was Rocky, one was Grease. I love that movie, and then you have Jaws. Those are three movies that really [shaped me]… then, of course, there was Duel. That was the first, and then there was The Shining. There were a lot of movies in the seventies that were great, but I think Jaws was probably the one that had the initial effect.
Thanks to Aaron Eckhart for taking the time to talk about Deep Water.
Source: Comingsoon.net