Little known a year ago, Josh Hartnett is front and center with Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale in this summer's biggest film, Pearl Harbor, and he has another major one coming up soon, Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. How did a lanky Minnesota boy rise to stardom so quickly? As he tells it, the formula for success is one part pure wanderlust to three parts sheer rebelliousness.
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When Josh Hartnett came to Los Angeles four years ago in hopes of finding acting jobs, he wasn't aware that most actors spend their first few years struggling before they land so much as a TV commercial. In his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, he had won lead roles in high school plays and a TV commercial for Mervyn's, so he just presumed luck would follow him west. Incredibly, it did. Within weeks he was cast as a rebellious teenager in the TV series "Cracker." The show failed, but Hartnett then simply moved to the big screen. When he played Jamie Lee Curtis's brooding son in the slasher hit Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, he gained an immense teen following that only broadened when he starred as a popular drug-dealing high school student in another teen flick, The Faculty, O, a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Othello, and the all-star Town & Country ran into unusual difficulties that delayed their releases for extended periods, while the teen weepie Here on Earth turned out to be a waste of time. But then he came out in Sofia Coppola's indie The Virgin Suicides. In that film, Hartnett's irresistible '70s seducer radiated such manliness, mystery and cool that casting agents and moviemakers knew instantly they were looking at a live one. Hartnett went to the top of the list of actors vying for starring roles in director Michael Bay's $135 million World War II epic Pearl Harbor. Bay chose Hartnett and paired him with Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale as the nurse they both fall for. Then, before Pearl Harbor's stunning trailer swept across screens, he was snapped up to star in two more high-profile films--the highly touted romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights and Ridley Scott's big-budget drama of U.S. soldiers in Somalia, Black Hawk Down.
Career ascensions as swift as Hartnett's usually breed cockiness, but Hartnett betrays none of that. When I catch up with the 22-year-old at the Chateau Marmont in L.A., he comes off as impressively gentleman-like and disarmingly serious. Dressed stylishly and simply in slacks and a T-shirt, he's a tall (6'3"), good-looking all-American guy, without a whiff of Hollywood about him. He seems to register my surprise at his ability to sit pensively still to the point of suspended animation. "I'm from Minnesota," he says in a whisper so soft I have to lean in to hear him, "so I'm conservative."
STEPHEN REBELLO: Are you still adjusting to the level of attention Pearl Harbor has brought you?
JOSH HARTNETT: It's not something that's easy to get used to. I find it odd how much attention has been paid to my personal life. I hardly ever read what's written about me, so I'm the last one to know what's being said, but if I even so much as say hello to an actress I barely know, later I'll hear that it was printed in a paper that we're an item. I like to be involved in the business, but I also like to keep kind of outside of it, know what I mean?
Q: Do you think Pearl Harbor will propel you toward Leonardo DiCaprio's level of fame? A: The size of Pearl Harbor was one of the scariest things about it. I didn't know if I wanted to do it because the scope was so frightening. I was afraid of the repercussions of fame. I was afraid that everyone would start wanting to know my business, want to sap something out of me, invade my personal life to the point where I have to guard myself against people. That's not my nature. I'm an explorer. But you can't turn down a film because you're worried that the success of it will land you on the cover of every tabloid.
Q: Do you have a strategy for handling fame?
A: I'll deal with fame if and when it comes. If it does, I'll probably screw it all up, you know?
Q: What finally convinced you to take Pearl Harbor?
A: A conversation I had with my dad. I told him that the film would change my life and maybe my whole family's, too, and that I didn't know if it was the right thing to do. He said, "It's your decision. But fame is temporary. You can quit and it'll go away or you can keep going and it'll go away anyway. But regret can be permanent." One of the last things I said to my dad before I got on the plane to go off and shoot Pearl Harbor was, "I'm going to go for the ride until it lets me off."
Q: Sounds like you're very close to your father.
A: Oh, man, he's a great guy. He owns and manages buildings in the Twin Cities, and he's made a life where he rarely has to work too much and he just hangs out with my brothers and sisters. We have a great father.
Q: Let's talk Pearl Harbor. How did you decide to play your character?
A: As early as the screen test I asked the director, Michael Bay, and the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, if they wanted the character to be more standoffish, a real guy's guy, like the way actors played pilots in '40s films, or if they wanted him to be more in touch with his emotions. They said they didn't want the performance to be overstylized, because they were making the film for a new millennial audience. The characters might have come across a bit stiffer if we'd played them in the '40s style. I probably could have done it if I was a better actor and delved into the times. But, really, the script is too straightforward to find those moments. It's an honest portrayal of an innocent guy who's had a tough life. He's dealing with a lot of pain and sadness. In a way, he's the same kind of guy I always play.
Q: You mean bruised, sad, troubled?
A: [Laughs] You've got it. It's not that I look for that, but my characters always have dark backgrounds.
Q: What was the greatest challenge of making Pearl Harbor?
A: Trying to find out where I fit in this gigantic thing. The confidence you have to have to feel like you belong on the screen with all this amazing stuff happening--it's pretty intense. Ben Affleck has that confidence. I tried to reach it while we were shooting.
Q: Did you learn anything about fame from Affleck?
A: I don't know if I could learn anything from Ben or anyone else until it happens, but I think Ben's holding together very well. I've seen other people who aren't. I do know that when you're not famous, you're trying to find exciting things to happen in your life, and when you're famous there's always something coming at you. There's never a dull moment. So I figure when you're very famous you look for dull moments.
Q: Michael Bay is famous for being hard on his actors. How was he with you?
A: I got to know him before we started filming so I knew he wasn't as big a bastard as people think he is. He's really passionate and feels he hasn't figured out a different way to get things done quickly other than getting really hard on people. The stuff that he pulled off while we were shooting was amazing, so I felt lucky to be around that kind of visual genius.
Q: Bay has spoken about how difficult the filmmaking process was on Pearl Harbor. Did you feel that?
A: Doing it was so chopped up. Different pieces of one cockpit drama between me and Ben were dispersed over several months. We shot inside a plane in Hawaii taxiing down a runway with us looking out the window, then months later we shot on a big mechanical monster, a gimbal, from the outside. Then we shot a little bit on the tarmac on the Disney lot. All of this was for one scene. The challenge was to make it seem continuous.
Q: Your Pearl Harbor costar Kate Beckinsale is just one of the talented, beautiful women you've worked with. Some of the others are Kirsten Dunst in The Virgin Suicides, Leelee Sobieski in Here on Earth and Julia Stiles in O. Who stands out? A: Leelee's such a sweet, sweet girl, a really smart person with a great head on her shoulders, sometimes too much so. She's way beyond her years. We got to be pretty good friends. She and Kirsten Dunst have both grown up to become such fully intelligent and interesting people. It's just great to see that the business hasn't knocked the legs out from under either of them, which it definitely can.
Q: Which costars do you think you've had chemistry with?
A: Leelee and Julia Stiles.
Q: Are the rumors that you dated Stiles true?
A: No, that's ridiculous. When I see her out I say, "Hey, Julia, do you know we're hot and heavy?"
Q: Would you say you have chemistry with Shannyn Sossamon, with whom you costar in 40 Days and 40 Nights?
A: It was a good working relationship. We had a good time together. [Long silence]
Q: Can you remember a moment in the film that suggests the chemistry between you? A: Are you looking for dirt?
Q: I'm trying to get an idea of how you two sparked.
A: Yeah, right. [Laughs] She's got a boyfriend and I kind of have a girlfriend. We're just friends.
Q: Because you've worked with so many attractive actresses, do you feel you have a pretty good grip on how they tick?
A: Women are a mystery. I've never been able to figure one out. But it's a lot more fun to go to work with a beautiful, intelligent, exciting woman than it is to go to work with a bunch of middle-aged men. No offense to the middle-aged men of the world.
Q: Have you ever had a relationship with one of your costars?
A: I screwed up on my girlfriend with somebody on a movie set and we broke up. A while later, after we became friends again, she said to me, "I know why, I understand completely what it's all about, how hard it is to stay involved with someone far away when you're making a movie." She taught me the word "communitas," which means a community that comes together to make a piece of art, then disperses. You go through the entire stage of a community, only it's compressed within three months. And there's a prince and princess that pair off. The crew rarely does that, maybe because crews are usually from the location where filming takes place. Actors are imported and don't know anybody except each other. You're young. You're ready, willing and able and [Laughs] you're just there. What can I say?
Q: Does it ever get awkward when you're romancing your costar?
A: It's weird when you're doing a love scene with someone you just fought with. How do you push past that? You have to be a really good actor to brush off bad feelings and replace them with warm ones. A smart actor doesn't get involved because the relationship affects his performance.
Q: Are you a smart actor these days?
A: I'm getting smarter. With my girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or friend--I don't know what to call her--we never look at it like, "Are we together or are we friends?" She's going to kill me for saying this. I definitely screwed up and now, it's just a change in the circumstances. It's really tough not being with her, to tell you the truth. When we see each other we can't deny our feelings.
Q: If she looks anything like you do right now as you're talking about her, you're probably both hurting pretty badly.
A: Don't feel that sorry for her because I screwed up, man. She's had boyfriends before. She screwed me over first. We've been on and off together for a long time.
Q: Is she an actress?
A: She does theater in Minneapolis. The only thing that's important is that she and I have maintained a good relationship through all of this odd "fame" stuff, as I have with all my friends.
Q: Getting back to 40 Days and 40 Nights: what made you choose that as your follow-up to Pearl Harbor?
A: The script scared the hell out of me because when I started reading it I realized, "Goddamn it, it's a sex comedy." Then I kept reading and thought, "This is brilliant." After I finished it, I wrote on it: "They'll never make it because it's so sexual."
Q: How sexual is it?
A: After my character gets dumped by his girlfriend, he goes on a sex binge. But every time he has sex he feels emptier and emptier, until he starts to feel like he's going insane. He decides to give up all female contact for the 40 days of Lent, thinking it's going to make everything better. Then he meets the perfect girl.
Q: You went from that film to the military drama Black Hawk Down. Did Ridley Scott tell you what he'd seen of you that made him want to cast you?
A: Michael Bay showed Ridley parts of Pearl Harbor. Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Pearl Harbor, is also producing Black Hawk Down. Jerry has been nothing but good to me.
Q: What attracted you to Black Hawk Down?
A: I wanted to work with Ridley. I was excited I could tell friends that I was working with a master! The story never stops being intense, so it's just going to be a wild ride.
Q: With whom do you compete for roles?
A: Sometimes Heath Ledger.
Q: Which roles has he won that you've wanted?
A: 10 Things I Hate About You wasn't a role I was dying to get, but it wasn't a role I didn't want, either. I was sent the script for The Patriot and I didn't read it because I was shooting another movie. Once I read it, I thought it was great, but by the time I called, Heath Ledger was already cast.
Q: What film roles not related to Ledger have you missed out on?
A: I was in London when Tigerland came to me and I wanted that because it's a fantastic role--I was like, finally something I want to do--but I heard about it too late and Colin Farrell is just juggernauting right now. My biggest problem is that I don't read the scripts on time. That's me, a day late and a dollar short.
Q: Do you ever get jealous of what other actors your age are capable of doing?
A: When I saw Benicio Del Toro do such a fantastic job in Traffic, I thought, "Come on, all it is is a series of facial movements. Why can't I make my face do what Benicio's does?" He's unbelievable.
Q: How do you evaluate your talent?
A: I can't stand watching myself on-screen. I want to be able to get to the point where I can watch and say, "Yes, that's what I wanted to do," but it's never that way.
Q: Will you ever live in L.A.?
A: No, never. I live in Minnesota. I've still got a little of that "Fuck them, I don't have to be in L.A. if I don't want to." Hollywood is so full of people with so many opinions that I can't keep my own opinions straight. Not living in Los Angeles is a means of survival more than anything else.
Q: Didn't you grow up away from your mother?
A: I grew up in St. Paul with my dad and stepmom. My mom lived in San Francisco for most of my life.
Q: Was that difficult?
A: Yeah, I missed my mom as I grew up. We never really knew each other that well. But I'm fine.
Q: Were you a good kid or a rebel?
A: I defied everything even slightly parental--in fact, I've been defying everything for pretty much my whole life. All I wanted to do was not do what they told me to do. My parents had gone to a particular Catholic school when they were kids and their attitude was, "Go where you like, but we'll only pay for you to go to the same school we went to." I hated it. I was buttoned-up all the time. I defined my character by being the opposite of what the school told me to be. That was unhealthy.
Q: Did you run with any clique?
A: I didn't want high school to capture me like I thought it had captured so many other people. The others didn't want to conform and fit in any more than I did, but they did. It really pissed me off that they didn't stick to their guns.
Q: Did you focus on the schoolwork then?
A: No, I got mediocre grades. I think education is very important, but I didn't want to do all that nonsense busywork.
Q: When did you start acting?
A: I took up theater after a torn ligament in my knee prevented me from playing football. Huck Finn was the first character I played, and is still probably the closest character to my own.
Q: How are you like Huck?
A: I have wanderlust. A need to keep going. A hunger to move around, see things, learn. When I was 14, I began to read a lot of Kerouac--On the Road, Dharma Bums, Big Sur. I always wanted to get out and see what was there.
Q: What grabbed you about acting the first time you did it?
A: Acting involves studying people, which I've always done naturally. Some people become psychologists. I became an actor.
Q: High school actors are often pretentious and unpopular. How did you keep from becoming like that?
A: A lot of my friends thought actors were people who emoted way too much offstage, wore way too much patchouli, made strange, obtrusive comments in class and always had to be in the spotlight. I wanted to show people that you can do theater without having to be a complete idiot.
Q: What was college like for you?
A: People were surprised I was even going to college because I was kind of a screwup for a while. That I was going to college for theater was an even bigger shock. But theater has never defined me--what defines me is wanderlust, this extreme need to move, to see.
Q: Define "screwup."
A: [Laughs] Well, I didn't mean it as a big doomsday kind of thing. I was just a bit irresponsible. When I was younger, I was pretty spacey. I'd always go off into my own thing. I'd forget important events. So, more recently, I've started to...uh... [Long pause]
Oh, sorry--talk about being spacey.
Q: For a while you worked in a video store. Was there a film that you took home with you over and over again?
A: Basquiat. I loved it because it combined the New York scene, painting and poetry. Beautifully made, beautifully acted. It's so honest, so spot-on and has such a beautiful message on fame.
Q: And that message is?
A: Fame can just snatch you up. Suddenly, it's beyond your control. Feelings of jealousy, of envy, can separate your friends from you. You, in turn, can get nasty, get scared of your friends--scared that they're out to take something from you. You can lose sight that your friends have been your friends for a long time and they don't want anything from you except your friendship.
Q: Tell me about a movie you'd most like your life to be like.
A: It'd probably be something like Kenneth Branagh's film of Much Ado About Nothing, where you're hanging around with a bunch of beautiful women in Tuscany, where everyone's always got a quip and everything works out well in the end. But conflict is necessary. It keeps us going.
Q: Who are your favorite poets?
A: There are all sorts of poets I enjoy--I can't just say Yeats or Allen Ginsberg. I wish I could write poetry.
Q: As you're gaining fame, do you find it odd that people are willing to listen to you expound on any number of subjects?
A: [Laughs] I still don't think people give a shit what I'm talking about. They're just looking for certain things they want to hear.
Q: Any political issues that are important to you?
A: I want to do something with Habitat for Humanity while I'm in Morocco shooting Black Hawk Down. It's something called Global Volunteers, where for six weeks you live in a village and help build a school or library.
Q: If one day you find your entry in an encyclopedia of movie stars, what do you hope is written about you?
A: That I was an actor who showed brilliant potential and achieved an exciting level of accomplishment. A lot of people want to be the Brando or the De Niro of their generation, but I don't know if I'm capable.
Q: Do you have Oscar aspirations?
A: I don't think I have a shot, so it's not that much of a problem.
Q: Who are you, when you strip it all away?
A: I hope I'm a caring person. I think I'm a genuinely mixed-up person. I'm aware of being goofed-up and just happy to be going through it. I'm a guy who likes to explore. I'm just looking for the next adventure.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Baz Luhrmann for the June issue of Movieline.