BYU alum Eckhart is an actor moviegoers will love to hate

Aaron Eckhart has been working in Hollywood long enough to know that if you get film offers, you take them. If there's work, you keep working.

"In this business, you can't be so arrogant to expect that every role you take, every film you're in, is going to be great," the 38-year-old actor said by phone from New York City. "It would be terrific if there were plenty of terrific parts to go around, but it's just not happening.

"The fact is, the best roles — those career-defining ones — only come along once a decade or so. And only then if you're lucky."

Eckhart is alluding to the fact that it's been nearly 10 years since he played the caddish Chad in the dark comedy "In the Company of Men." He received rave reviews for his performance in that film — but it's taken this long for it to happen again. It's happening now for his similarly slimy lead role as a cigarette lobbyist in the satirical comedy "Thank You For Smoking."

The two roles have a lot in common, and not just because Eckhart is playing them. "Apparently, I do this kind of thing well. Which I guess means I'm the guy you love to hate. Or hate to love. Or I'm just hateable. Or lovable. You decide."

Loosely based on Christopher Buckley's best-selling novel, the movie follows Eckhart's character, Nick Naylor, as he tries to provide a good role model for his young son, played by Cameron Bright. In addition to working with Bright, with whom Eckhart developed a "big brother-little brother relationship" on the set, the film also gave him the opportunity to work with veteran actors Robert Duvall, Sam Elliott and William H. Macy.

"And did I mention that I got to kiss Katie Holmes in this movie?" he said with a laugh. "Sorry Tom Cruise, she was mine first."

The Nick Naylor role is certainly the kind of part Eckhart dreamed about playing while he was attending Brigham Young University during the early '90s, where he also met playwright and future filmmaker Neil LaBute. "Neil and I always talked about where we saw ourselves being 10 years later. I keep thinking, I'm a little ahead of him there, but he's the one who's busy directing movies. Me? I'm just the actor."

The two friends first collaborated cinematically on LaBute's "In the Company of Men," which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. "Thank You For Smoking" had its debut at both the Cannes and Toronto festivals, but also screened at Sundance in January, which marked a welcome return home for Eckhart.