In the late 90s and early 2000s,Josh Hartnettwas everywhere. Films likeThe Faculty,Black Hawk Down,Pearl Harbor, and40 Days and 40 Nightssolidified him as one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars. Then, following the release of 2007’s30 Days of Night, Hartnettall but disappeared from the mainstream. Sure, he was still making movies, but they were quieter, independent productions likeI Come with the Rain,The Lovers, andStuck Between Stations. Neither of them made very much money, and it was a case of being out of sight, out of mind, as folks had all but forgotten about him until his starring role in Showtime’sPenny Dreadful.
Now, Harnett is back in the public eye and experiencing a career resurgence of sorts thanks to movies likeOppenheimer,Trap, and his latest release,Fight or Flight. Speaking with MovieWeb’s ownGeorge Edleman, Harnett explained the reasoning for him getting back into mainstream films, saying that most of the credit should go to two things: his kids, and Covid.
“What really changed my trajectory is that I had a third child, and we went into lockdown, and I was like, I might not be able to make movies anymore. So I started calling directors that I knew, or had my agents call directors that I knew, and ask, ‘Do you want Josh in anything?’ I did a couple of films with Guy Richie, and a film with Chris [Nolan], and a couple of other things, like the Black Mirror episode. I just started working with people that I always wanted to work with.”
Josh Hartnett Reveals How Toxic Fandom Made Him Walk Away From Hollywood
Josh Hartnett, the star of M. Night Shyamalan’s newest thriller, Trap, reveals why he left Hollywood at the peak of his career.
Harnett’s explosion back into Hollywood came by way of the 2021 Guy Ritchie action thriller,Wrath of Man, where he played Boy Sweat Dave alongside leading man Jason Statham. Produced on a budget of $40 million, the film grossed $104 million at the box office; not a runaway hit, but a success nonetheless compared to what he was doing before then. He followed it up with 2023’sOppenheimer, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and a ton of awards for Hartnett and the film’s ensemble cast. M. Night Shyamalan’sTrapin 2024 pretty much set his comeback in stone, and now things have come full circle, with Hartnett once again seemingly everywhere.
Josh Hartnett Calls His Younger Self “Very Naive”
When you’re a hot young actor in Hollywood, the roles are reversed a lot of the time, and instead of having to go out and audition for movies, they come to you from various producers and directors. In the 2000s, Hartnett pretty much had his pick of the litter about which movies he wanted to be in, but noted that he didn’t realize at the time how detrimental that was to his worldview.
“I didn’t realize, earlier in my career, that half of making films is about creating relationships, or even calling people and just telling them how much you appreciate their work. It was very naive of me to think that the world was going to come to me.”
“But I was also very happy, before having so many children, to be making more experimental films and not making any money off of them,” he continued. “Having a lot of kids, I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I need to make a living at this, too.’ And what if, you know, we do have another pandemic and I can’t ever make a film again. What do I want to do?”
It seems that Hartnett finally has things figured out, and has found a way to balance his love of making independent movies with big Hollywood blockbusters. No one is happier than his devoted fan base, who are just glad to see him back on the big screen after so long away. You cancheck him out now inFight or Flight, which is in theaters this weekend from Vertical, and be sure to check out our interview with Hartnett above.
Fight or Flight
