Aaron Eckhart Erin Brockovich (2000)
Aaron Edward Eckhart (born March 12, 1968, Cupertino, California) played George, the biker boyfriend, in Erin Brockovich (2000). The role pivoted Eckhart from indie misogynists to commercial leading-man casting and stayed in his filmography as one of his most affectionate performances. (wikipedia, imdb)
George is the only male character in the film who is not asking Erin to be different
George arrives next door with a noise complaint and asks Erin out within thirty seconds of meeting her. Erin fires back the now-iconic litany of numbers — six, eight, ten months, two marriages, sixteen dollars, her phone number, and the prediction he'll call it zero times. George remembers the bank balance and tells her she's wrong about the zero. From there, he occupies the role usually given to a girlfriend in this kind of story: he watches her kids, feeds them burgers, plays cards with Matthew, fights with Erin about the danger of the case, and finally delivers the ultimatum that tells the audience what the case is costing.
The first-word phone call (beat 23 of Backbeats (Erin Brockovich)) is the scene that defines Eckhart's performance. Erin is driving home from Hinkley, exhausted, calling George to stay awake. George tells her Beth pointed at a ball and said the word, clear as anything. He describes the soft arm, the chubby cheeks, the dropped jaws. The monologue is sweet and devastating in equal measure — Erin missed the moment because she was working. Eckhart improvised much of the tenderness within Soderbergh's loose framework. (imdb trivia)
"I think I just came to terms with the fact that I'd never be the leading man." — Aaron Eckhart (after the era of In the Company of Men), Backstage (2008)
The George casting reversed that assumption. The role is not the lead, but it is unambiguously a romantic lead — handsome, gentle, sexually direct, paternal toward children who aren't his. After Erin Brockovich, Eckhart was offered romantic leads instead of the corrosive cads Neil LaBute had been writing for him.
Eckhart's career was built by Neil LaBute and pivoted by Soderbergh
Eckhart had played the cruel sales executive Chad in Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men (1997), and the obsessive Barry in LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors (1998). Both performances were career-defining and career-limiting — the parts were so vivid that casting directors had trouble seeing him as anything else. Soderbergh's casting of George broke the typecast.
"I think Erin Brockovich was the moment people stopped wanting me to be a creep." — Aaron Eckhart, The Guardian (2008)
Eckhart's filmography after Erin Brockovich is heavy on commercial leads with selective dramatic breaks
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | In the Company of Men | LaBute breakthrough |
| 1998 | Your Friends & Neighbors | LaBute follow-up |
| 1999 | Any Given Sunday | Stone ensemble |
| 2000 | Erin Brockovich | George |
| 2000 | Nurse Betty | LaBute |
| 2003 | The Core / Paycheck | Action leads |
| 2005 | Thank You for Smoking | Golden Globe nomination |
| 2006 | The Black Dahlia | De Palma |
| 2008 | The Dark Knight | Harvey Dent / Two-Face |
| 2010 | Rabbit Hole | Opposite Nicole Kidman |
| 2011 | Battle: Los Angeles | Action lead |
| 2013 | Olympus Has Fallen | Action franchise |
| 2014 | I, Frankenstein | Title role |
| 2016 | Sully | Co-lead with Tom Hanks |
| 2016 | Bleed for This | Boxing biopic |
| 2019 | Midway | Roland Emmerich |
| 2024 | The Bricklayer | Action thriller |
The most prominent role of Eckhart's post-Brockovich career is Harvey Dent / Two-Face in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008). Like George, the role asked Eckhart to play moral decency under pressure, and like George, the performance got more critical credit than it usually gets attached to a comic-book movie. The performances bracket each other: George stays good, Dent does not.
Eckhart on Soderbergh and Roberts
Eckhart has spoken about the Erin Brockovich shoot as a turning point in his sense of what was possible at his level of stardom. Soderbergh's loose, naturalistic approach gave Eckhart room to find George's tenderness without the macho overlay he had been asked to bring to other roles. Roberts treated him as a peer, not a supporting player. (imdb trivia)