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NEW YORK -- Aaron Eckhart once said that he learns something new from every movie role.
From his part in No Reservations, the new film with Catherine Zeta-Jones that opens today, Eckhart, 39, learned his way around a kitchen.
Both actors play chefs.
"We had a great time getting to know each other in the kitchen," says Eckhart of the experience.
He and Zeta-Jones trained at Fiamma Osteria in New York with Chef Michael White.
"We were trying to stay out of the way and be very courteous with each other and move around the kitchen.
"By the second or third day, you're bumping into each other and you're reaching over each other and becoming very familiar.
"That was a lot of fun to do that."
He adds, "I've never really had a fantasy about being a chef."
Pause. Smile. "Nor will I."
No Reservations is a love story and Eckhart plays an opera-loving chef whose kindness and enthusiasm endears him to all. That's a far cry from the role that first brought him attention a decade ago, when he played the cruel, woman-hating Chad in Neil LaBute's chewy outing, In the Company of Men.
Eckhart and LaBute met when both were students at Brigham Young University, and Eckhart has also starred in LaBute's Nurse Betty, Your Friends & Neighbors and Possession.
Among his approximately two dozen movies are Erin Brockovich, The Core, The Black Dahlia, The Pledge, Any Given Sunday, Suspect Zero and Thank You for Smoking; Eckhart is regarded as one actor who can play almost anything.
His acting career began when he was 15 -- he was Charlie Brown in a play.
Eckhart says he really considered himself an actor from that day onward, "Although I couldn't get a job until I was 28."
Now, it's like he's making up for lost time.
Eckhart works a lot, and among his upcoming films is the much-anticipated Dark Knight, in which he plays Harvey Dent, whose alter ego is the villain Two-Face.
He can't really talk about that just yet.
"There are people here who will put poison darts in me if I talk about Harvey," he quips.
Okay -- back to No Reservations, then.
It must have been good to play a nice guy after playing edgier characters, no?
"That's why I loved the script and wanted to do the movie.
"It's not even about how I'm perceived as an actor, as much as it is what I want to go to work on and do. I would like to just go to work and try to make people happy as opposed to backstabbing someone or whatever. I found that very refreshing.
"Whether or not it will help to take off the edge, I don't know, because it just seems like I can't get away from Chad and things like that, but I do like playing romantic kind of comedy roles and I have a lot of fun doing it."
He continues, "As you get older, your tastes change. I was just talking to Gary Oldman about this and I asked if he'd do Sid & Nancy again right now, and he said, 'No. I don't want to climb that mountain right now.'
And as I get older, I feel I'd rather make people laugh and feel good coming out of the theatre.
"When I made Thank You For Smoking, seeing people coming out of that movie smiling had such an impact on me."