8 Little Known Ways Aaron Eckhart Made Nolan’s Two-Face Awesome

8. He Studied Split Personalities

It's impossible to discuss everything Aaron Eckhart did right with Two-Face without first going into everything Tommy Lee Jones did oh so wrong in Batman Forever. The previous big screen version of Two-Face suffered under director Joel Schumacher's complete disregard for the source material, ending up as little more than a reskinned version of Jack Nicholson's Joker. One of the central missing elements was the duality of Dent and Two-Face - there was lots of two-sided imagery, but it was all for nothing when the character it surrounded was unpredictably schizophrenic. Not only did Eckhart not revisit Forever before filming the role, but he went forward to make up for the previous oversight, studying the psychology behind his character. Particular focus was put on split-personalities - what they really are and where they come from - and although Harvey Dent and Two-Face aren't the typical dual personality (bar one Nightwing comic), this helped get Eckhart into the right mental state for the character's third act.