He's playing Tom Hanks' copilot in Sully, Miles Teller's boxing coach in Bleed for This and now a maverick exorcist in Incarnate. And he is enjoying the variety. "Early on in my career, I was very much into independent movies," he says. "I wanted to work with my heroes. I was the brooding actor, so it was very important that I stayed away from Hollywood. I did it very deliberately. And I'm glad I did because it made me who I am. But as I've gotten more experience, I feel like I've filled that quotient and I can let myself have fun."

Aaron Eckhart seen on the red carpet for Sully

He says the thing that pushed him out of the serious movie mould was the wordiness of the screenplays he was sent. "I'd gotten to a point where I would get scripts, and it would just be page after page of monologue, monologue, monologue," he laughs. "And I was just like, I don't want to say any more words! My ideal movie now is me on a train, just grunting."

For Incarnate, Eckhart enjoyed the way the film adds a sci-fi twist to the demonic thriller genre. In the film, he's joined by high-brow actresses Carice Van Houten and Catalina Sandino Moreno as he plays a sardonic exorcist who enters the mind of a demon-possessed boy and finds a lot more than he bargained for. "I play a scientist with the ability to enter the subconscious minds of the possessed," he says. "So now he must save a young boy from the grips of a demon with powers never seen before, while facing the horrors of his own past."

More: Read our review of Bleed For This starring Miles Teller and Aaron Eckhart

Eckhart deliberately mixes up his roles. "I'm unbalanced at all times," he laughs. "I try to live on the edge, and I feel like it's better at the end of your life to have many experiences. So I try to grab films and do whatever I can and work with that interesting guy and do that interesting genre. That's what happened this year. I did an action movie [London Has Fallen], I'm in a boxing movie, I'm in a plane movie and then I'm in a horror movie. And now I have nothing, so now I have to go out and make a whole bunch more movies!"

And he certainly isn't bothered about playing sidekicks to actors like Tom Hanks and Miles Teller. "I've always been a solid supporting guy. I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I can contribute in my own way."