Josh Hartnett recently spoke to The Guardian about his decision to leave Hollywood at a time when his career was booming after starring roles in Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, 40 Days and 40 Nights and more. Although Hartnett only took an 18-month hiatus from acting, he left Los Angeles, moved back home to Montana and made radical changes to the types of films he wanted to be in. It was also during this period that Hartnett walked away from Superman twice.
“I didn’t want my work to swallow my life,” Hartnett said. “There was a belief at the time that you had to give it all up. And I saw what happened to some people at the time. They were ruined by work. I didn’t want that for myself.”
But there was another, darker reason for Hartnett's departure from Hollywood. The actor revealed that he had become a target for stalkers, and that “people's interest in me at that time was on the verge of becoming unhealthy.”
“Well, look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. There were incidents,” Hartnett said. “I had people come to my house. People stalk me. A guy came to one of my first shows with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in jail. There were a lot of things. It was a weird time. I wasn’t going to be a grindhouse.”
As a result, Hartnett shied away from star-studded roles and big-budget films. When his team booked him to meet with Christopher Nolan about playing Batman, for example, he decided to instead run for Nolan’s lower-budget thriller The Prestige. Christian Bale ended up playing both roles.
“I realized what a missed opportunity it was to work with a guy like Chris,” Hartnett said of his thoughts at the time. “I came to the conclusion that while you might be concerned about devoting your career to the things that matter to you, I don’t think that’s the most important thing anymore. It’s about finding people you really trust.”
Hartnett eventually got a second chance to work with Nolan when he was cast in Oppenheimer, a role that sparked the actor's return to the Hollywood limelight. He then went on to star in M. Night Shyamalan's thriller Entrapment for Universal Pictures.
Visit The Guardian to read Hartnett's latest profile in full.
