Manipulative, misguided and heartless: The controversial lengths Aaron Eckhart went to while method acting
Even though the debate over the pros and cons of method acting is one that’s been rumbling on for decades and will continue to do so in perpetuity, even the staunchest supporters of the technique will be forced to admit that Aaron Eckhart completely misunderstood the memo.
Actors totally immersing themselves in character for months on end before, during, and occasionally after production is a common occurrence and a regular practice, with several noted method purveyors straying into territory that can exist somewhere between unnecessary and detrimental on occasion. Still, none of them have anything on Eckhart, who thought he was serving his craft but was really outing himself as an obliviously manipulative person.
David Lindsay-Abaire adapted his own play Rabbit Hole for the screen in 2010, with Eckhart and Nicole Kidman taking on the lead roles in John Cameron Mitchell’s powerful drama. The stars play a couple grieving the death of their young son, with cracks appearing in the relationship as they process and deal with the trauma in their own ways.
Eckhart’s Howie Corbett wants to hold onto the things that remind him of four-year-old Danny, whereas Kidman’s Becca prefers a fresh start. Both stars were excellent in their respective roles in a moving, intimate, and often harrowing portrait of the after-effects that can be born from an unspeakable tragedy no family should have to suffer through, but the former’s preparations left a bad taste in the mouths of many.
In order to get into the required mindset, Eckhart attended a support group for parents who’d lost children. While there’s nothing wrong with sitting in, listening, and trying to craft a performance around the experiences being shared by those who lived through such devastating events themselves, The Dark Knight star decided to take things several steps further than necessary by pretending he’d lost a completely fabricated child he’d conjured out of thin air in the name of aiding his acting.
Not only that, but the support group proved so emotionally wrenching that Eckhart – who it should be noted has precisely zero children in real life – found himself reduced to a wreck. “Oh yeah, 100% I lost it,” he said. “You really believe that you have just lost a child. You are as close to reality in that sense as possible.”
Even though he said he didn’t “want to be rude to people who have lost a child,” admitting “you feel right there, you feel like your character” did a pretty good job of it anyway. It’s one thing to show up as an actor and gain an understanding of a fictional part that’s being played, but it’s something else entirely more unpalatable to lie to the faces of bereaved parents and try to convince them that their experiences were a shared one.
