Smoked out

March 16, 2006 | Aaron Eckhart has played a scientist ( "The Core"), a historian ("Possession"), a hippie biker (opposite Julia Roberts in "Erin Brockovich") and a wonderful collection of louts, beginning with his breakout role as the conniving Chad in Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men." He'll play another in Jason Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking," which is based on the satiric novel by Christopher Buckley and opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday. In it, Eckhart employs his trademark sly grin and comic-book-hero chin as a butt-kicking, name-taking tobacco lobbyist, Nick Naylor, who charms everyone he meets -- from an eager-beaver reporter played by Katie Holmes to the captain of the tobacco industry played by Robert Duvall.

In the process, the 38-year-old actor seems to have softened his post-9/11 vow to go for more feel-good fare, saying that bad guys are often more interesting to play. But don't ask him to play Satan's right-hand man -- or Hitler, for that matter.

Salon sat down with Eckhart recently in New York.

It seems like it would be really fun to play your character in "Thank You for Smoking": brash and cocky in a good way, but also, as a tobacco lobbyist, doing what a lot of people would consider a very bad thing for a living. Tell me about how you approached the role.

The important thing about this character is that he's always moving forward. I wanted to really get that energy out. So if it looks like I enjoyed doing it -- well, that was part of it. But at any moment the audience can turn on the character because he has all the cards against him: a tobacco lobbyist, you know.

The subject of the film -- the controversy surrounding smoking in America -- is certainly provocative and timely.

Well, smoking has become such a red-hot issue that we all have an opinion on where we stand with it.

They're even considering banning it in bars and restaurants in Britain, where you spent your teenage years.

Yes, they followed New York.

They're talking about starting it in 2007.

And Ireland as well.

And Italy.

Yeah. I couldn't care less. I don't smoke.

Have you ever been a smoker?

I used to smoke, yeah. I have no feeling for smoking one way or another. If people are happy, I'm happy to let them do it if it's legal. I mean, I wouldn't want them to smoke in front of my face or on a bus or something like that. I guess the whole premise of this film is that, if it's still legal, then there's not much we can do about it.

So it's a matter of the legality.

Well, I mean, who am I to say to the dude who smokes a pack of reds a day that he should give up smoking? It's not my place. If he enjoys it, then he can do it. Now if he's smoking right next to me on a bus, I might say, "Hey, you mind not smoking?" And if there's a sign up there that says "No Smoking," I might say, "Look, you're not supposed to smoke in here." But for me to say, you're a bad person or you're weak because you smoke, I wouldn't say that. Obviously I would like the guy to quit because he's hurting himself. Smoking is bad for you. I don't see this movie as a smoking movie, though. I see it as a comedy about a guy who likes to talk, built around smoking.

A central device.

Yeah, and that device could be anything. I mean, cellphones, or anything, cheese. At one point they were saying that oranges give you cancer ... And that's the thing about this movie, for me in promoting it: It's a comedy. It's funny. It achieves its goal right there. People will walk out, I think, yes, talking, but I think they'll mostly be chuckling.

I want to ask you about the sex scene that got deleted when the movie was shown at Sundance and the speculation that it had been cut at Tom Cruise's insistence. Also in terms of working with Katie Holmes during the whole TomKat media blitz --

[Laughs.] TomKat! I've never heard that before. [He doesn't seem to be joking.] Well, Katie's wonderful. I had a great time working with her. She could not have been a sweeter girl. The sex scene was apparently [deleted due to] a projection malfunction, unfortunate for the film only in that the audience didn't get to see the whole thing. Surprised everybody. It's funny this whole --

Conspiracy theory?

Yeah, it was kind of funny. Now, I haven't seen [Katie] since the movie, and I don't follow the papers, so I don't know where [she and Cruise] are at, what their relationship is going through. I think she's a really great girl, and if she's happy, I'm happy for her.

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