Josh Hartnett put his peace of mind above his career years ago when he quietly left Hollywood in search of a quieter lifestyle.
The Trap actor turned down two major superhero roles at the height of his fame. Shortly after landing a minor role in Sofia Coppola’s 1999 cult classic The Virgin Suicides, Hartnett made a splash in the film world, starring in nine films in 2001 alone, including Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down.
When it came to pinpointing a specific reason for Hartnett’s withdrawal from the spotlight, he told the Guardian there was no linear distinction between “happy Josh and unhappy Josh”.
“The attention people were giving me at the time was almost unhealthy,” Hartnett said.
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Josh Hartnett left Hollywood for fear of overzealous fans. (Getty Images)
Asked to specify who the attention was directed at, he added: “Look, I don’t want to make too much of this. There have been incidents. People have shown up at my house. People who have been harassing me.”
“There were incidents. People came to my house. People who harassed me.”
Hartnett was 27 when “a man came to one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in jail.”
He added: “There was a lot going on. It was a strange time. And I wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire.”
Josh Hartnett rose to fame at a young age and starred in “Black Hawk Down” in 2001, the same year he starred in eight other films. (Getty Images)
The ‘Oppenheimer’ star now splits his time between the UK and the US, although he lives in the UK on a marriage visa that only allows him to leave the country for a maximum of 180 days a year.
“There was a lot going on. It was a strange time. And I wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire.”
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Hartnett began dating British actress Tamsin Egerton in 2012 after meeting on set, and the couple secretly married in 2021.
“This is all new to me,” he said of his almost anonymous life in Hampshire. “I didn’t expect it. And time flies. With four kids, you have so much to do. In some ways, there’s less going on, but more important things happening.”
Hartnett and his wife Tamsin Egerton have four children. (Getty Images)
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He added: “My eldest daughter is now eight and a half. I feel like this has happened to me in the last two years. So I’m trying to make the most of it.”
Hartnett never gave up his love of acting, but he did step away from the spotlight that blinded so many. He left Los Angeles, returned to his home state of Minnesota and took on more ambitious, but smaller, projects.
Hartnett has three films in the works, including “The Long Home,” directed by James Franco. (Getty Images)
“I didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work,” he said. “Back then, people thought you had to give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They were devastated by this work. I didn’t want to go through that for myself.”
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Hartnett has several projects in the works, including “The Long Home” directed by James Franco, the action thriller “Fight or Flight” and “The Last Draw of Jack Hearts.”
