AARON ECKHART

Date of Birth: March 12, 1968

Originally from Northern California, Eckhart moved to England with his family when he was a teen. He returned to the States to study theater at Brigham Young University in Utah. Which is where he met director/writer Neil LaBute, and their working association began. Eckhart has become a regular player for LaBute appearing in a number of the director’s projects.

Although Eckhart had a few stints on television, he really made a name for himself playing men who excel at dysfunction. Hollywood really took notice of him in the role of a white collar business executive who plots with a fellow employee to emotionally destroy a female co-worker in The Company of Men (1997), which was written and directed by LaBute. The movie won great acclaim (as well as a couple of awards for Eckhart’s performance), and Eckhart went on to star in the director’s next feature Your Friends and Neighbors (1998).

The following year Eckhart won a lead role in Molly (1999), playing the brother of an autistic woman who was “cured” by surgery. That same year he also costarred in LaBute’s third film, the uncharacteristically sweet-natured Nurse Betty (2000). He played a romantic lead co-starring opposite Hilary Swank in the big budget feature The Core (2003).

Never married, Eckhart was once engaged to actress Emily Cline, but the two separated in 1998. In 2007, he was one of 115 people invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.