Aaron Eckhart is more known for his role as Harvey Dent in Dark Knight. Now, he is hoping to get recognized for a starring role through I, Frankenstein. In this film, the 45-year old actors plays the role of horror classic Frankenstein. The movie will hit the big screen on January 24 and also stars Yvonne Strahovski.

Few days before the film's showing, Eckhart spoke about how much he prepared for his role which he says is a challenge 'physically.' In a report by the Boston Herald, Eckhart revealed that he trained for Kali stick fighting to be in good shape for the role.

"Physically, I'll tell you it was a challenge," Eckhart said of a regimen that meant "six months, three hours a day for Kali. Then, getting in good shape.

"To get to that level, it was every day with a trainer. I said to him, 'Try to kill me every day.' "

In the movie, Eckhart has a lot of scenes wherein he has to be half-naked. Apparently, he wasn't really sold on that idea.

"I'm actually shy about taking off my shirt, it's not something I enjoy, but I'm on the cover of Muscle & Fitness - at 45 years old! That's quite a feat," Eckhart said in an interview at the Trump Soho Hotel.

In a separate interview, the American stage actor said that he hasn't been in a gym for years, which made the training more challenging.

"I haven't been to the gym in years, so I work out every morning - I throw rocks and dig holes and jump over stuff [and] I'm also a road cyclist."

"Yesterday, I was doing some shopping and I had to tear myself away from getting a large pizza," he says. "I literally had to wrench myself out of the pizza place. I didn't eat at all until I got home - I had put some yams in the oven earlier that morning. So I had cold yam."