Remember in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s when Josh Hartnett was featured on the cover of every teen magazine and bedroom wall? Well, it’s been over a decade since then, and quite frankly – I couldn’t tell you the last film I saw Josh Hartnett in, and I’m not alone.
A quick Twitter search of the actor presents many variations of one core question: what happened to Josh Hartnett?
While some may have last seen Hartnett in the 2014-2016 horror series Penny Dreadful, my most recent memory of the now 41-year-old spans all the way back to 2002, when he played the cute, sex-obsessed Matt in 40 Days and 40 Nights.
Well, it turns out Josh Hartnett has actually appeared in a bunch of stuff in the last 18 years. In 2004, he was the lead role in the drama mystery flick Wicker Park, in 2006, he starred alongside ex-girlfriend Scarlett Johansson in The Black Dahlia, and he also had starring roles in films including Pearl Harbour, Black Hawk Down and crime thriller The Lucky Number Slevin.
So, how come we’re not gushing over Hartnett the way we used to? Perhaps it’s because the actor maintains a relatively low profile these days, and doesn’t lean into the tabloid success and red carpet antics that so many celebrities do these days. There’s also the fact he took some time out of the spotlight to get married to fellow actress Tamsin Egerton in 2012, and raise their two kids in the UK.
In a 2004 interview with the Evening Chronicle, Hartnett said of being famous, “I know what it’s like to be in that whole world. I was up there for a couple of years, and it was uncomfortable. I think trying to stay at the top is a shortcut to unhappiness.”
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Speaking about his break from Hollywood, Hartnett said, “I spent a bit of time really thinking about whether this was the right thing for me.”
Fast-forward to 2020 and Josh Hartnett is still singing a similar tune. In a recent interview with Variety, he said, “All those magazine covers and paparazzi and all that sort of stuff was not at all how I lived my life, and not at all who I thought myself to be. So I feel very much myself now, and I took steps to make my life not as crazy after that movie came out and was successful at it and have remained sort of outside of the fray.”
“When I was younger, it was important to me to kind of figure out who I was, what I wanted for my life, how I wanted to create my life without so much scrutiny. I did that, and now I feel comfortable being who I am in the spotlight if I need to be.
The good news is Hartnett is set to make a return to our screens in 2020 in the TV series Paradise Lost and the thriller flick Target Number One. We’ve missed you, Josh!
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