Josh Hartnett names his favourite movie: “If I can get away with doing something remotely as cool, I’ll be very happy”
All he wanted to do was be an actor, but Hollywood was so determined to transform Josh Hartnett into the next A-list megastar that he ended up turning his back on it entirely in favour of taking charge of his own destiny.
The first few years of his career were nothing short of a whirlwind, with Hartnett debuting in the slasher sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, lending support in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, taking centre stage in Robert Rodriguez’s cult classic The Faculty, headlining Ridley Scott’s war drama Black Hawk Down, and anchoring Michael Bay’s epic Pearl Harbor within three years of his first feature.
It was a meteoric rise, to put it lightly, although the downside to achieving such fame so early on is that Hartnett wasn’t only ill-equipped for it but completely and utterly disinterested. He didn’t have the best of times co-starring with Harrison Ford in Hollywood Homicide, but the blockbuster offers kept on rolling in anyway.
Not many young actors would turn down the chance to play Batman and Superman, but despite the riches on offer, Hartnett stood his ground. Instead, he drastically scaled back his workload, focused on the projects that would challenge him the most, and went into a state of semi-exile that led to a 14-year absence from wide theatrical releases between 30 Days of Night and Wrath of Man.
The resurgence looks firmly on the cards, though, with a major role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer being followed by a top-billed turn in M. Night Shyamalan’s latest twisty thriller Trap. Playing the fame game was never on his agenda, but because Hartnett was a handsome chap who made a number of very successful films in a very short period of time after arriving on the scene, attempts were made to stuff him into a box he didn’t want to be in.
His ambitions have always lay somewhere other than mindless effects-driven escapism, something that’s clear in both the way he’s taken charge of his own career and the movie he named as his favourite of all time, per The Guardian. “Fellini’s 8½ is my favourite film,” he said. “If at some point I can get away with doing something remotely as cool as those, or anything Federico Fellini ever touched, I’ll be very happy.”
Has Hartnett been in anything as cool as Fellini’s masterpiece or any of his other great works? Debatable, but his enthusiasm can’t be faulted. One of the most influential movies ever made, there aren’t many industry figures who can lay claim to being in anything even half as iconic as 8½, but carrying the dream of contributing to cinema in a manner even slightly comparable is a commendable one nonetheless.
