The 2001 movie Josh Hartnett knew was a bad idea from the start: “I was right to fear it”
Most young actors would kill for the opportunity to have superstardom shoved in their lap, but not Josh Hartnett, who actively rebelled against his appointed status as Hollywood’s next big thing.
History is littered with up-and-coming stars who’ve been tipped for the top, and not all of them make it. The difference between Hartnett and the rest was that, whereas they failed to make the most of their opportunities, he wasn’t interested in taking them, turning his back on the mainstream instead.
It’s not accurate to say that he disappeared from the industry when he’s been averaging over one movie a year since making his feature-length debut in Halloween H20, and there have only been three years since 1998 when he was completely absent from the screen, but that’s the way he wanted it.
It takes a brave actor to say no Superman, it takes an equally brave one to say no to Batman, and it takes an especially brave one to say no to both, with Hartnett having already convinced himself by the early 2000s that big-budget blockbusters and high-paying franchise gigs weren’t for him.
There was one picture that made up his mind, and he had a feeling it would turn out that way. With only four films under his belt, 2001 was the year that Hartnett officially announced himself to the wider world, or, to be more accurate, it was the year studio executives decided he was the guy.
He appeared in five movies that were released between January and August, taking top billing in Ridley Scott’s two-time Academy Award-winning war story, Black Hawk Down, taking second billing in the modernised Shakespeare adaptation, O, lending support in the flop rom-com, Town & Country, and co-starring in the comedic caper, Blow Dry.
It was supposed to be a breakout year, and it kind of was, but sharing leading man duties with Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor was the moment Hartnett realised he didn’t want to be a movie star. Sure, the World War II epic made almost $500million at the box office and won an Oscar, but it was also panned by critics and landed six nods from the Razzies.
“I was happy with the amount of fame I had and the types of roles I was getting,” he reflected. “At the same time, I asked myself: ‘Am I just afraid that by doing Pearl Harbor, I’m going to enter a new category of filmmaking that I might not be ready for? I ultimately chose to do it, because turning it down would’ve been based on fear.”
However, when he discovered that it was indeed a new category of filmmaking that he wasn’t ready for, the after-effects caused him to make a career-defining decision. “Then it defined me,” Hartnett concluded. “Which means I was right to fear it.” With that, he turned a new leaf and intentionally receded into the background, having come to terms with the fact that Hollywood wasn’t for him.
