The movie that sent Josh Hartnett into Hollywood exile: “It was all too much for me”
Most young actors would jump at the opportunity to be Hollywood’s hand-picked superstar, but Josh Hartnett wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
While it borders on impossible to single out which names are destined to reach the A-list and remain there in perpetuity when their careers are only in the earliest stages, sometimes studio executives cut out the middle man and tell audiences that this is the next big thing.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Hartnett was well-placed to evolve into the industry’s next major leading man, and it appeared that the filmmakers he worked with agreed. He was young, handsome, and repeatedly cast in high-profile projects that served to shine his fledgling star, which wasn’t what he envisioned for himself.
By the time he’d turned 25, Hartnett had starred in the profitable cult favourite horror The Faculty, won indie cred for Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, taken top billing in Ridley Scott’s blockbuster war drama Black Hawk Down, anchored Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor opposite Ben Affleck, headlined the hit romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights, and shared the screen with Harrison Ford in Hollywood Homicide.
A telltale sign of how hard the bigwigs wanted to push Hartnett to the moon came when he was offered the role of Superman, which he promptly turned down. A guaranteed contract worth tens of millions of dollars was something very few actors of his age would decline, but he never wanted to be a movie star.
After Hollywood Homicide, a production in which he didn’t get along too well with the most famous curmudgeon in Tinseltown, Hartnett gradually backed away from Hollywood. However, as he explained, his mind was made up long before then.
“I stepped away quite a bit,” he admitted to Marie Claire. “I left Hollywood. As an 18-to-22-year-old I was incredibly lucky, working with some fantastic people, but after Black Hawk Down, it was all too much for me, and I decided I needed time to figure out what I was about. I was spending my entire life on film sets, and the fame was daunting.”
Hartnett appeared in five more films between the release of Black Hawk Down and Hollywood Homicide, but he’d already decided that he wanted no part of the machine. Instead, he drastically scaled back his involvement and spent the better part of the next two decades playing supporting parts and occasionally leading the line in a smaller feature until he was comfortable enough to return on his own terms.
These days, he’s in the midst of a renaissance. Hartnett could have had it all 20 years ago, but the pressures of achieving so much at an early age almost turned him off acting entirely. He played the long game, and it’s looking like it’ll pay off in the long run.
