Josh Hartnett Breaks Down His Career, from 'Pearl Harbor' to 'Black Hawk Down'

Vanity Fair

Josh Hartnett walks us through his legendary career, discussing his roles in 'The Faculty,' 'The Virgin Suicides,' 'Pearl Harbor,' 'Black Hawk Down,' '40 Days and 40 Nights,' 'Sin City,' 'Lucky Number Slevin,' 'Penny Dreadful,' 'Oppenheimer,' 'Trap' and more.   Director: Adam Lance Garcia  Director of Photography: Jack Belisle Editor: Cory Stevens Talent: Josh Hartnett Producer: Madison Coffey Line Producer: Romeeka Powell Associate Producer: Lyla Neely Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza Camera Operator: Mar Alfonso  Gaffer: David Djaco  Audio Engineer: Rachel Suffian Production Assistant: Patrick Willems Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Additional Editor: Jason Malizia

Transcript

00:00Everything exceeded my expectations back then because I had no concept of what the movie business was and to go from film to film

00:06I just thought that's the way it was once you once you started making movies, then you just made all the movies

00:20Hi, I'm Josh Hartnett and this is the timeline of my career

00:30I

00:36Wasn't actually interested in film acting I was interested in films

00:40I thought maybe I'd want to direct if I could ever find a way to direct. I loved the art of

00:46Filmmaking and would watch like movie after movie each night and I fell in love with

00:52for Diego Fellini and Louie mall and luci and like a ton of really just

00:58Amazing filmmakers that was sort of my film school

01:00Halloween a show is the first film that I made but I was cast first for the faculty just on this TV show called cracker

01:07I was actually still working on it and

01:09Someone asked me if I'd auditioned for a couple movies met Robert or you guys hadn't read the script and he cast me on the spot

01:15Essentially for Zeke many years afterward. I was like, why would you see me? Like I didn't know what I was doing

01:20He's like it's precisely because you didn't know what you were doing

01:22You were like too cool to have read the script that I thought you'd be perfect for Zeke

01:26It's like it wasn't that I was too cool. It's just I didn't know at all. Robert is such an inclusive director

01:31He just wants to play he's sitting on a skateboard and somebody's pulling him with a rope and he's holding the camera like this

01:36and so he has this sense that like everything is sort of homemade and fun and

01:42Anything is possible as long as you get it in the can. I learned a lot from Robert on that one

01:47I also like Jon Stewart

01:49Look sorry to impose and disrupt mr. Furlong, but you kindly take your seats. This will be over quite quickly

01:58He hadn't released his first book yet, but he's like like tested some of the material out on us

02:02Let me read an early early edition of it and Jon Stewart became who he is clearly

02:07I don't know. It's just such a weird eclectic group of people Robert Patrick

02:11BB Neuwirth and all the rest of the adult actors. They didn't really mingle with us younger actors

02:17We were our own little crew, you know, we could watch them work, but really they were all sort of enigmatic to us

02:22I was just trying to pick it up as I went along and I had no concept of like craft

02:26But I was picking up little things from other older actors who were around me or actors who were younger who'd been working a long

02:32Time like Elijah really had an idea of how he wanted to make that character just trying to fake it

02:37On this particular day. He ran into mr. Woodhouse in the hall and ducked into the nearest class

02:48Meeting Sofia for virgin suicides. I could see the artistry in her

02:55Bearing she just is an artist. I obviously knew her father was I had an expectation of what?

03:02She would be doing based off of his work. He was producing it

03:05so I expected like him to have a

03:08Strong hand in the filmmaking process and none of that was true. All of my expectations were false

03:12She decided to write her own version of the script and deliver it to the producers and they loved her script

03:17And then she pitched them on her being a first-time director and they said yes. I mean that takes

03:23Incredible gumption and yet she is like the quietest most

03:29Sane

03:31director

03:32In the world and I just respected her

03:35Entirely she had an enormous amount of integrity a rare talent and being able to capture something. That's absolutely spectacular

03:42Beautiful and ephemeral and do it with such ease and grace

03:46As opposed to being something that's that's that's like a monster a film set can be a monster

03:51It can be a real brutish thing

03:53You've got to work really hard to get these shots in this amount of hours

03:56It's Sofia

03:56There was just always an ease about the film set and that was exciting and I think those films those initial films sort of spoiled

04:03Me made me think that all film processes would be that way and not all of them are some of them are hard to work

04:09But I had a lot of fun on those first films

04:12My dad took me up a couple times

04:14Just don't do what he doing. What do you call it when you flip over?

04:25Pearl Harbor was by far the biggest film that I've worked on and I was trepidatious about it because I was very happy with

04:32the amount of work that I was getting and the type of directors I was working with and

04:36was I think getting a reputation for

04:41Being an actor that would play a lot of different types of roles

04:43I'd played Iago essentially in a modern adaptation of Othello an archetypical bad guy and Tripp Fontaine

04:50isn't necessarily a very nice guy either and then very kind of

04:54Innocent and fun in in other roles and was able to kind of work on all these different characters

04:59I wasn't sure if I wanted to blow that up by becoming a type. Also ultimately I was thinking maybe you're afraid of this

05:06Big film because you're afraid of you know traditional success or something. And so I decided maybe I'll take the

05:14The scary path and be a part of it

05:25You read the script and you know, it's not going to be a direct

05:30historical

05:31Film it is a romance and you know a few years after Titanic had come out and they wanted to

05:37capitalize on a similar sort of

05:39Audience and that Michael Bay makes big spectacle films

05:43He's interested in large aspects of filmmaking and it's not necessarily about the intimate moments

05:48That said I get along with Michael really well

05:51I think a lot of people at that time were saying that he's a very difficult director to work with and what blah blah blah blah

05:56And like watch out. I didn't have that experience at all

05:59I think Ben took the brunt of some of Michael's unhappiness at times whenever things would go wrong

06:03But they already had a relationship, but I didn't have that experience

06:06I think maybe because I was so green that he just took it easy on me

06:10You left her to fight somebody else's war and you made damn sure that I didn't go with you

06:14We thought that you were dead. I almost did died

06:17You know son of a bitch her face was the last thing that went through my mind

06:20So don't stay in here and tell me act like it's alright. Yeah, well I stayed in the end. The movie was

06:27Popular and it was and I was on the cover of a lot of magazines and it did change the way that people perceived

06:32Me like I sort of anticipated

06:34but I guess I didn't anticipate like

06:36how the how that would feel to be inside of it as opposed to like seeing it from the outside viewing somebody in the

06:40midst of sort of a

06:42Celebrity moment is different than what it feels like on the inside and at the age of was like 21

06:47It's I didn't have the foresight to sort of understand that I guess I would say that it felt

06:52Simultaneously exciting because everybody was interested in me being in

06:57Their next film and I was able to go work with Ridley Scott directly afterward

07:01I was able to work with Harrison Ford not too long after that

07:05I was able to kind of work with people that I'd always

07:07Admired the other side of the business the sort of celebrity aspect of it wasn't really my thing

07:12I didn't fit in with that celebrity moment, which was very MTV at the time

07:16You know and I wasn't really that kind of a guy and I think I was too young to have

07:21Found myself as a human being and so I was trying to find myself in the midst of everyone else defining me

07:27And I just found myself feeling a little bit

07:31Frustrated that I wasn't being represented the way that I wanted to be represented which isn't the way it works

07:37but I didn't know that because I was too young it felt discombobulating and

07:41I looked for you know, the things that I find most

07:47Stabilizing which is like family and friends back home

07:51First

08:03It was a natural progression for me because it happened so organically we had finished Pearl Harbor

08:10Jerry Brockheimer called me and said would you like to meet Ridley Scott? I was like, yes

08:14We had a great conversation and he was like, would you like to play this role?

08:18And I said absolutely and I was happened to be the first one cast. It is an ensemble film

08:22So I didn't ever expect to be on the poster or anything like that

08:26It was just I wanted to work with Ridley. I want to see his process

08:29I wanted to be a part of it because I was the first one cast

08:31I didn't know how stacked the cast would be but it is just filled with so many amazing actors entirely different directing styles between

08:38Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. I

08:40Wouldn't compare the two except for the fact they both exist in a overarching genre of war film

08:47they don't have

08:49much else in the way of like narrative comparison or

08:52Aesthetic comparison they could be completely different genres

08:56And I think in a way they are even though Jerry Bruckheimer's the obvious connective tissue there having produced them both

09:01But I tried not to compare them at all

09:03He's more looking at what Ridley had done recently and trying to kind of live up to what I believed

09:07Were the sort of amazing performances in his films over the last few years and again still trying to figure out how to act

09:14Which is you know, also, you know daunting no sex for Lent for 40 days if I can do that then everything will be okay

09:22That isn't what Lent is

09:23Lent is about sacrifice and growth through self-denial

09:26Lent is to remember how Christ felt during fast in the desert. I know exactly I grew up in the same house as you moron

09:3240 days and 40 nights is

09:34probably not a traditional choice to make I wouldn't probably

09:40go back and

09:42do the same thing, although I really enjoyed the process of working with Michael Lehman and

09:49The writer became a friend of mine

10:04The thing is of its time, but it was different for its time

10:08You know, it was trying to twist the concept of the things that were happening at that time

10:12There were a lot of like sexy comedies being made and I thought this was funnier because it was an anti sexy comedy

10:19It probably didn't age. Well, I haven't seen it in a long time

10:24I haven't seen it since it came out every chance I get to make comedy

10:27I want to go do it because I just I love being on a comedic set you get the most instant gratification

10:31You know when you're on a drama, maybe things are working in the right direction and it might work out

10:35But there's so many things that could go wrong in the edit on a comedy if it's not funny

10:39You can tell that on set but when it is funny, you know that too

10:43And so you get to go home feeling good about yourself

10:45And even though it's very difficult to do sometimes you make really funny scenes. She only goes stiff for a moment

10:52care for a smoke

10:58Sure take one are you as bored by that crowd as I am?

11:05I didn't come here for the party

11:08Came here for you

11:09Robert Rodriguez and I had maintained contact since doing the faculty because I had said to Robert on set supposedly

11:16I don't believe this but he says that I said to him if you want me to come back and like sweep the floors for

11:21You I'll do it. Thank you for casting me in my first film

11:23I might have said that I don't know you'll have to ask Robert

11:26So Robert called me and he said time to cash in those chips. I've got this movie

11:31I really want to do called Sin City Frank Miller's unsure. It's his baby

11:36Will you come down to Austin so I can show him what I want to do with it?

11:39And we'll just shoot one scene Frank's gonna be there and we can all sort of talk about it

11:43I said, yes, of course, I will Robert because I owe you and so I came down and then

11:49Frank got very excited about the scene. He loved the visuals

11:53Robert was in real time on the screen basically showing what the shop would look like

11:58We were shooting on green obviously

11:59But you could get a sense of what it was gonna look like and that book really intense black and white

12:03It was unlike anything they've been done before. I was like you guys gonna make the coolest movie

12:07See you later after we had dinner

12:09And I went off to shoot something else and a couple months later

12:12He said Josh we come back down to shoot one more scene. I think we're to put the scene in the movie

12:15I said absolutely and I came down and they were just like in the midst of finishing the film and they made this wonderful film

12:21It's great experience. They had a wonderful time. Apparently I wasn't there for it. I would know involvement

12:27So, thank you Robert. So I shoot the last scene two minutes just standing in an elevator and then they put it in the film

12:32Do you want to give me ninety six thousand dollars? No, do you want to give me ninety six thousand dollars? No

12:38Should I I don't know should you I

12:43Don't know should I Paul is a notoriously

12:48Malcontented human being and he's Scottish and I love him to death. He's got a really nice accent. He wears really nice hats

12:57he's just like a real character and he's just always very upset with everything but

13:02underneath that sort of like

13:04Grumpy exterior. He's a real artist

13:07He's like an absolute artist and on wicker park there were things that he wanted to do that

13:11I know he couldn't fit into that film and that framework

13:14You just see that there was something that he was struggling to get out because he had done this movie called gangster number one

13:18That had a lot more sort of a sort of a rough edge to it

13:20And we wanted that for lucky number seven. We did a little rewriting a little tweaking and my buddy Jason

13:26He said what do you think about a towel? And I was like, what do you mean?

13:30He's like, well, do you think Slevin should be wearing a towel for the first bit of the movie?

13:34Like just got out of the shower. I was like, yes, that's an amazing idea how to make yourself as

13:39Unthreatening as possible when you're going to try to kill a couple of drug lords. Oh, there it is

13:56Oh

14:05When I spoke to John Logan about the character to begin with it's all about tragedy and secrets, right?

14:12He's dealing with something that feels like a trauma that he can't articulate and he's having these blackouts

14:19And there are other other symptoms that kind of go into

14:24That like his alcoholism and all that sort of stuff that I feel like could be neatly placed on other things that are more human

14:31And so I didn't have to go very far to sort of understand where he might be coming from

14:35I don't think he at the beginning of this knew exactly what he was. He's running. He's just constantly running

14:40He's he's as far away from where he came from as possible. How do you develop that character?

14:45We had a big open slate and I had a lot of good conversations with John Logan

14:48We got to a point where we were able to sort of come up with that season 3 arc Brian Cox playing my father

14:54Which was amazing the whole experience of working on something for a long time with a long arc like that was was very satisfying

15:02it's a difficult one because

15:04You can get in a situation where you could just let him be a werewolf and that's it

15:08Like that's the big reveal and that's it

15:10I'm really glad that they were they were interested in kind of exploring

15:14How he became who he is and how he deals with it and where he goes from there

15:18He must be off at Heimer. Yes. I hear you want to start a school of quantum theory

15:23I am starting it next door. They put you in there. I asked for it

15:27I wanted to be close to you experimentalists theory will get you only so far

15:31I knew Chris from earlier in my career. We didn't work together and there's all sorts of you know

15:37Conjecture and you know conversations that go on around around this. I was never offered Batman

15:42So like let's like put that to bed

15:45Chris has said it I've said it multiple times

15:47We just talked about it. I thought maybe I'd never hear from him again. It was big regret of mine that I didn't pursue

15:55Working with him with like more vigor back when I was younger because I knew he was a fantastic filmmaker

16:01And I knew that being able to sort of like foster relationships with great filmmakers is really what this business is about as an actor

16:08and then he

16:10Brought me the script. I read it and we talked about Ernst Lawrence. He told me right off the bat

16:16He's like, this is a real character

16:17There are a lot of characters in this but this character is important to killings Lee and we've got these other guys

16:22then it's like it's gonna be a big deal and

16:25I was I was flattered really flattered to be a part of that crew

16:29I feel like I could see one of those dark stars that you're working on

16:33You can't

16:34It's the whole point

16:36gravity swallows light

16:39It's like a kind of hole in space

16:41What's amazing about working with Chris Nolan is that everybody there knows how important the film could be how wonderful the film could be

16:47Because of his presence and is there to help him make it wonderful and nobody's there to kind of give themselves

16:53You know a big ego kick because you can't there's like no there's no structure for that on it on a Chris Nolan set

16:58You're all there just working. You don't even have a chair to sit on you're literally there focused on it

17:04All the crew members are people that worked with Chris in the past. So it feels like a family

17:07That's a overused phrase, but it really does it's a wonderful experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat

17:22What happened I think that woman drank too much lost her balance

17:27Let's clear up give us some space. I've always wanted to work with night

17:30I would have probably done almost anything with night because I've always found him to be

17:36one of the most fascinating filmmakers in our business terribly underrated sometimes for his

17:42Amazing abilities as just a straight teller of interesting stories in this situation

17:48What really highlighted my interest the character Cooper is so neon colored

17:54He's so dark and he's so light and there's so much in between and it needs to all be grounded somehow

18:02Hey

18:03We should climb down and see where it leads. It looks really cool

18:07What?

18:08Would it be unbelievable to see what's down there? Yeah, they put on the show

18:13There might be costumes in things

18:15That's crazy. We can't go down there

18:18Acting strange something wrong dad

18:23No

18:24Knight's gonna use his camera the way that he uses his camera

18:27He's gonna approach this thriller genre the way he does from a different angle

18:32He's gonna make his traditional antagonist into the protagonist

18:35And so people are gonna have to follow this character and be interested in him the whole way through and there are very few films

18:40Probably that I've seen where I would follow a character like this

18:44Through to the end and still feel like an understate like I understood what the journey was for him

18:50you know and

18:51That was our challenge and I feel like when a challenge like that is is is put in your lap

18:56You have to take it. It's just it's so rare to be able to get a to get a role like that

19:03We all have this like innate ability in our youth to kind of like find our own way and make sure that we know

19:11what direction we want to head before we listen to other people and we try we fight against the sort of social norms coming in

19:17And restricting our choices. You just got to try to hold on to it

19:20It's really rewarding when it works out and even if it doesn't work out it still feels

19:25Okay

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