Josh Hartnett announces his retirement
In the early 2000s, Josh Hartnett was one of the most promising young stars in Hollywood. Then, he suddenly withdrew for many years. Now, the 46-year-old speaks about the reasons for the first time. He also mentions stalking.
Josh Hartnett was one of the most successful and promising young stars in Hollywood in the early 2000s with roles in "Pearl Harbor", "Black Hawk Down", "40 Days and 40 Nights", and "Lucky Number Slevin". Then, the actor suddenly withdrew, moved back to his home state of Minnesota, even turned down offers to play Superman and Batman, and focused only on smaller productions.
The 46-year-old returned to the spotlight in 2022 with Guy Ritchie's action comedy "Operation Fortune", and later appeared in the hit series "Black Mirror" and the blockbuster "Oppenheimer". A few days before the premiere of his new film "Trap", Hartnett explained in an interview with the British "Guardian" why he decided against a career in Hollywood at the time. "The attention I was getting was bordering on unhealthy," he said.
"There were incidents. People would show up at my house. People who were stalking me," the actor recalled. Once, a man with a weapon came to a premiere party claiming to be his father. He is now in prison. "There were a lot of things. It was a strange time," the former teen heartthrob remembered.
"I didn't want that for myself"
While stalking incidents were an important factor in his withdrawal, they weren't the only reason. "I just didn't want my life to be consumed by my work," he said. "And at the time, there was this idea that you had to give up everything." Many other actors had been "destroyed" by that. "I didn't want that for myself."
Instead, he focuses on family life. The American lives on a farm in his wife Tamsin Egerton's English homeland of Hampshire with their now four children. There, he feeds the animals every morning and has become a fixed part of village life. Unlike in New York or LA, "where people only want to talk about their own career, it doesn't matter here," and that's what he likes, Hartnett told the "Guardian".
Hartnett's new film, "Trap: No Way Out" by director M. Night Shyamalan, will be released in cinemas on August 1. In it, the 45-year-old plays a serial killer who attends a pop concert with his daughter. At some point, he realizes that the event is a trap to catch him.
Hartnett mentioned that one of the reasons for his withdrawal from Hollywood was the stalking incidents he experienced, which included people showing up at his house and even a man with a weapon at a premiere party. Furthermore, he emphasized his desire to prioritize family life, moving to a farm in England with his wife and four children, where he enjoys a different pace of life compared to New York or LA.
