Josh Hartnett: The hand-picked Hollywood superstar who said ‘no thanks’
Most aspiring actors would jump at the chance to become an A-list superstar at the very beginning of their career, but despite all the signs pointing in the direction of Josh Hartnett being hand-picked as one of Hollywood‘s leading lights, he simply wasn’t interested.
After gaining attention – and becoming a heartthrob and teen idol – in movies like slasher sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, cult favourite horror The Faculty, psychological drama The Virgin Suicides, Shakespeare reimagining O, and romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights, he was earning comparisons to everyone from Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp to Leonardo DiCaprio.
His ascent continued when he took top billing in Ridley Scott’s Academy Award-winning war story Black Hawk Down and rose higher still when he shared leading man duties in Michael Bay’s box office bonanza Pearl Harbor opposite Ben Affleck. His co-star Affleck told the world how “the guy will have beautiful women camped out on his front lawn for months,” but Hartnett couldn’t think of anything worse.
Working with Harrison Ford on the misfiring buddy cop blockbuster Hollywood Homicide only furthered his disenfranchisement with the Tinseltown machine. From there, he politely declined two of the biggest and most coveted parts in cinema after discussing Batman Begins with Christopher Nolan and resisting multiple overtures to suit up as Superman.
The actor admitted that he was “being offered movies by the very top directors” on a regular basis, but he was dead against committing to a comic book franchise. “At the time, it was so obvious to me to turn it down,” he recalled of flat-out rejecting the ‘Man of Steel’. “Yes, there was a lot of money involved, but I didn’t think that was the be-all and end-all.”
Refusing to be pigeonholed or typecast, Hartnett dramatically scaled back his workload in favour of focusing his attention on his personal life and family, becoming the father of four children with his wife, Tamsin Egerton. That meant his profile gradually diminished to the point there was a 14-year gap between appearances in major theatrically-released American productions from 2007’s vampiric comic book thriller 30 Days of Night to Guy Ritchie’s action thriller Wrath of Man.
He was lined up to star opposite Joaquin Phoenix in Ang Lee’s original iteration of Brokeback Mountain, too, but Hartnett has never openly voiced regrets of being handed stardom on a platter and promptly handing it straight back. In his eyes, there was much more to life than being in front of the camera, and even when he was, he wanted to be known as an actor and not a movie star.
“I think that I kind of took a few steps back from Hollywood as soon as it all started to come my way because I wasn’t quite ready for the attention. I didn’t want to watch every word that I say,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I wanted to develop naturally, so I just decided that being a quote-unquote ‘movie star’ wasn’t for me at that point in my life.”
Although he acknowledged there were ramifications along the way – conceding “I burned my bridges at the studios because I wasn’t participating” – a comeback could be on the cards. After playing one of the most prominent roles in Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, Hartnett leads the cast of M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming thriller Trap. He could have had it all two decades ago, but he might still get it yet, albeit on his terms this time around.
