Pearl Harbor star Josh Hartnett is a man of many talents, but perhaps being a smart and sensible one at the right place and the right time is the most coveted of them all. The young actor was 22 when the box-office-breaking blockbusters, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down came out. At the time, the actor was the new emerging icon of the industry – directors wanted him to be their leading man, magazines wanted him to grace their glossy covers, and actors wanted to walk in his shoes.
For Hartnett, however, life was meant to be anything but crowded with fame and glamor. So he took the path less traveled: one marked by independent films and turning down offers from big-budget productions. As he slowly but steadfastly makes a comeback to the spotlight 20 years later, the actor looks back at some of the roles that would have exponentially contributed to his career in the early 2000s.
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Josh Hartnett Talks About Christopher Nolan & Batman Role
The Batman Begins actor Christian Bale was forged in the fires of masterpieces like Empires of the Sun and American Psycho much before he rose to the overarching fame that he is now known for. And yet, despite such roles, the actor was not the primary choice for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Movies like these come by only once in a generation and to have a directorial genius devote years to crafting a well-rounded arc of an age-old vigilante superhero also meant having the best in the job take on the role of Batman himself.
At the time, Josh Hartnett was climbing the rungs in Hollywood as the new Leonardo DiCaprio of the industry, and as such, it was he that Nolan wanted. However, the director never found the opportunity to pitch an offer since it became clear quite early on that Hartnett did not wish to pick up a big-budget role that would further contribute to his steadily rising fame at the time. Speaking with Playboy, Hartnett later revealed:
“I’ve definitely said no to some of the wrong people. I said no because I was tired and wanted to spend more time with my friends and family. That’s frowned upon in this industry. People don’t like being told no. I don’t like it. I learned my lesson when Christopher Nolan and I talked about Batman. I decided it wasn’t for me.
Then he didn’t want to put me in The Prestige. They not only hired their Batman [Christian Bale] for it, they also hired my girlfriend [Scarlett Johansson] at the time. That’s when I realised relationships were formed in the fire of that first Batman film, and I should have been part of the relationship with this guy Nolan, who I felt was incredibly cool and very talented.”
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Josh Hartnett was not only approached for the titular role in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, he later clarified, “Batman wasn’t an audition or an offer. It was a conversation with the director”, but was also offered the role of Superman in the 2006 film, Superman Returns, a role that later went to Brandon Routh after Hartnett turned it down. Now, 2 decades later, the actor finally gets a chance to work with Nolan in the latter’s upcoming film, Oppenheimer.
Josh Hartnett Proud of His Choice to Move Away from Fame
In an interview with Variety in January 2020, Josh Hartnett telephoned in from London to talk about his life away from the spotlight and his gradual comeback to mainstream media. When asked about Pearl Harbor and the instant frenzy of the media and overnight fame that he was thrust into, the actor revealed:
“It felt removed from how my life was then. 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.”
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Speaking of the flurry of big namedrops chasing him for roles and leads, the actor mentioned how he considers himself to be “a little bit outside of the box and had the leverage to [turn down certain roles]” and that, at the same time, he also realizes how it can be “a very privileged place for a young man to be in.” Currently, Hartnett is gearing up for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Guy Ritchie’s Operation Fortune.
Oppenheimer premieres on 21 July 2023.
Source: Playboy
