Josh Hartnett: The new Hollywood heartthrob
Jaime Jeske
Hollywood's hottest new poster boy is Josh Hartnett, the chisel-jawed
star of Pearl Harbour and Black Hawk Down. But behind all the hype
Rachel Cooke discovers that the star being billed as 'the next Tom
Cruise' is a down-to-earth Minnesota boy who believes there's no place
like home
Sunday April 21, 2002
The Observer
I'm in a cinema on Union Square when I see it: a man-sized cardboard
cut-out of the actor I am to interview in a hotel room in a few hours'
time. Yes, it is definitely him. Same squinty eyes, same pale skin.
Above his head is the title of his new movie, 40 Days and 40 Nights and
beneath his feet is a roll call of names including, in big letters, his
own. 'Look!' I say to my friend. 'It's Josh Hartnett. Shall I take him
home with me?'
We are considering whether he will contravene any British Airways
luggage restrictions, when a fierce young blonde appears. She says
nothing, but looks like she might have designs of her own on Josh. We
leave, empty-handed, and feel her eyes boring into our backs all the way
to the subway.
It is at this moment that it finally hits me: in America, Josh Hartnett
really is hot news - and girls will, if necessary, fight to the death
for the right to own their very own cardboard cut-out of his 6ft 3in
frame. Pay attention, and you'll see his face everywhere: on The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno, on the cover of Details magazine, on billboards at
run-down street corners. For the past few months, he has been
publicising first Black Hawk Down, the Ridley Scott epic about America's
disastrous foray into Somalia, and now this - a romantic comedy in which
he plays a hunk called Matt Sullivan who takes a Lenten vow of sexual
abstinence. The result, gratifyingly for the studios, is coverage as
deep and crisp as freshly fallen snow.
40 Days is not the kind of film Hartnett is likely to take his granny to
see. There are lots of porn jokes and strange protuberances in our
hero's trousers. In one scene, his flatmate even carries out spot checks
on his friend's bed linen using a special light to detect emissions. But
it gives Hartnett the chance to round off an early career in teen flicks
(he was named 'the unofficial Hottie of Horror' by 17 magazine) with a
performance his fans will be able to breathlessly discuss on his
websites for years to come. It will also remind directors everywhere
that, though he looked good in combat fatigues in Pearl Harbour and
Black Hawk Down, he looks even better in jeans and a sweater. It's all
part of the plan, stoopid.
Happily, in person, you would never know that Hartnett is being lauded
as 'the new Tom Cruise' or even 'the new Leonardo DiCaprio'. He is
better-looking than either of them and about a tenth as big-headed.
We meet at a starchy hotel just off Fifth Avenue, where he and his
co-star, Shannyn Sossamon, are billeted for the duration of a press
junket for 40 Days. With minimum fuss, he walks into the room looking so
gauche and anxious and unbelievably handsome that it's hard to sit
still. Meeting him is like going on a date with a boy you know is
miles - continents - out of your league: pointless and misery-inducing
and thrilling all at the same time. He has high cheekbones and dark
eyebrows hovering over flinty green eyes. He also, like all truly
desirable men, has the requisite flaw: a delectable gap between his
front teeth.
In a deep, gravelly mumble he tells me that, yeah, his grandma probably
won't like his new movie. 'But if I was painting or writing, I wouldn't
veer away from things because they seemed unsavoury to me. So as an
actor I kind of think the same way. I should do things that are
different and interesting and shed light on the craziness of the world.'
But could he, in real life... erm, do without it for 40 days and 40
nights? 'Well, I wouldn't want to but, you know, maybe. It's you women
who think we guys are so highly sexed.' He pauses, no doubt to watch the
red carpet creeping up my neck and across my hot little cheeks. 'I mean,
I don't think most women could go without touching a man or masturbation
or anything to do with sex, like, for a very long time. They'll never
admit it though. Heh heh heh.'
Josh Hartnett, who is 23, was born in the St Paul half of Minneapolis-St
Paul, and despite the siren call of Los Angeles, he still resides in the
Twin Cities. 'It's one of those ideal places to raise a family,' he
says. 'It's safe, it's beautiful, there are lakes and cabins. The people
who represent me understand that I want to be there, so they just kind
of let me be.
I don't love LA. I love New York and Minneapolis, so if I have a choice
I'll stay in those places.'
His parents, whom he describes as 'hippyish', are divorced, but he is
close to both of them, and his three younger siblings, Jake, Joe and
Jessica. His father was a guitar player for Al Green before taking over
the family real estate business; his mother is a classroom assistant.
His folks are, he insists, are a lot more interested in achieving
happiness rather than success - and brought Josh up to be just the same
way.
'I never really considered acting as a career,' he says. 'I kind of fell
into it. Originally, I wanted to be a painter.' He got his first taste
of being in front of an audience during grade school, as an altar boy.
He and his friends would serve at funerals because they would get five
bucks and the day off school. But mostly, he wanted to play football.
Then, at 16, a knee injury forced him off the team. At first, he had a
strong suspicion that acting was 'for sissies', but somehow ended up
auditioning for the part of Huck Finn in a children's theatre production
of Tom Sawyer. He got the part. Soon after, a local talent scout spotted
him playing Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. By the time he left high
school in 1996, he was doing TV commercials and had a manager, Nancy
Kremer.
It was on her advice that he headed for Hollywood. 'She just kept
calling,' he says. So he gave in. The day after she picked him up at the
airport, he got an agent and was soon going to four auditions a day.
Though he was not always successful - it is part of the Hartnett legend
that he tried out six times for Dawson's Creek - within two months he
had landed a part in the US version of Cracker, playing Fitz's son. The
series was axed after nine episodes, but by that time Hartnett was
already on his way. There was Halloween H2O and another horror film, The
Faculty, and Sofia Coppola cast him in The Virgin Suicides as Trip
Fontaine - the sexiest kid in the school - without even meeting him.
'You just knew he had it,' she said. Then, the big one: Pearl Harbour,
in which he played Ben Affleck's best friend.
It was at this point, however, that Hartnett's strange Great Lakes
idealism reared its head. He was repeatedly told by Pearl Harbour's
producers that the movie - at that time, they thought it would be a
bigger box-office smash than Titanic - would 'change his life'. Hartnett
wasn't so sure he wanted his life to change.
'Yeah, I nearly turned it down,' he says, though he clearly dislikes
talking about the film which, in relation to the expectations heaped on
it, turned out to be a Titanic-sized flop. 'It was a role a lot of
people wanted but... I didn't want to be famous.' Still, someone
obviously persuaded him to think again. 'Well, we're all on a journey.
The average American switches profession four times. I'm lucky to be in
a business where I change the character I am playing every couple of
months.'
And there was one happy by-product: his pay cheque per film is now $2m
and rising. Not that he is particularly interested in money. So far, his
only luxury purchase has been a new car, an Audi, bought because his
parents were sick of his old Jeep breaking down all over the place. Does
this mean that he really isn't interested in being the new Tom Cruise?
He looks uncomfortable. 'I dunno. Tom Cruise is a multinational
corporation.' He pauses and then, perhaps afraid that he might sound as
if he is dissing Cruise, adds: 'It's flattering to be compared to him
because he has been so successful. I think he's an underrated actor. But
comparisons in the film business are completely odious. You can't follow
the same path as someone else.'
He has already set up his own production company and wouldn't mind
getting behind the camera himself, one day; failing that, he will go
back to his first love, painting, 'providing I haven't lost my soul
completely'.
So that hasn't happened yet? 'Not in my daily life, but you answer
enough questions about yourself and you start to get a big head.' Isn't
there a way he can stop this happening? 'Yes, by realising I'm not any
more important than anyone else. I look at it like this. There are only
so many blank spaces in the world for famous people, and they have to be
filled 'cos everybody wants to see movie stars and stuff like that. But
it's cyclical - there are people who are there for a while, then they
lose it.'
He stops, looks flustered, runs his hands through his hair. 'I'm just
coming up with this theory right now, so tell me if it's bullshit. What
I'm saying is, it's not about me, it's about that blank space. It's
about being in that spot. When you're not there, nobody cares. People
care about my fame, not me. But that's fine. I have my own life.
Besides, it's not as if I'm a politician.'
The way he tells it - though I am not entirely sure I believe him - fame
is agony and to fall head over heels in love with it is the biggest
mistake a man can make. Perhaps this is why he is so loyal to boring old
Minneapolis. 'I admire the way someone like Sean Penn keeps the bullshit
out of his life,' he says. 'I respect people who recognise their
boundaries as to how much of this stuff they can take. I also respect
people who can work in the midst of this press bonanza. Luckily, I've
got a pretty good bullshit meter. I'm pretty good at returning to life
after my work is done.'
As for the idea that he has some kind of masterplan, well, I'm barking
up the wrong tree there. 'I just kind go along for the ride. You need
some people in the world who are determined to do one thing in life, to
make that thing their goal. But luckily, because you have all those
other people being pillars, holding up the world, someone like me can
just wander through.'
The question is, will Hartnett make it as a serious actor, as he so
obviously longs to, or will he always be fobbed off with tedious
chiselled-jaw roles? 'Josh runs the real risk of becoming a sort of
one-man embodiment of the Backstreet Boys to hormone-crazed 15-year-old
girls from Minnetoka to Tarzana,' Ben Affleck told Vanity Fair magazine,
shortly before the release of Pearl Harbour. 'He is so very pretty.'
These words were prophetic. Hartnett has taken to wearing a knitted
beanie whenever he is out in public, though even a hat and sunglasses,
he says, 'don't really help' when you are being chased down the street.
'I'm kinda learning to deal with being recognised. I'm determined not to
change the way I live. I'm still gonna walk around and if people come up
to me, well, no offence, but I'll say, sorry, I just can't give
autographs all day.'
He was fine in Pearl Harbour, in as much as anybody could be fine in a
movie whose major stars were all exploding fusillades, and, in Black
Hawk Down, carried off his role as a staff sergeant with a certain
intense aplomb. 40 Days and 40 Nights is unlikely to win him any prizes,
though it shows he can do physical comedy if he puts his mind to it (his
character has a funny, jerky jog he slips into to keep undesirable urges
at bay).
But, so far, he hasn't made a movie that comes even close to, say,
Trainspotting, the film he says inspired him to try his luck in
Hollywood. He refers to Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner, his co-stars in
Black Hawk Down who both appeared in Trainspotting, as 'my two friends'
and adds, 'Wow! You see that kind of work and you want to be a part of
it.'
So what next? 'I plan to take time off,' he says. 'I've been doing
publicity for so long and before that I worked for four years straight.
I could do with a break.' Is it up to him what roles he takes, or does
his agent decide what he does and in what order? 'It's completely down
to me. These guys give me suggestions, obviously, but I'm one of those
people who when someone says "turn right," go left. I don't know whether
they've figured that out yet...'
Later this year, he can be seen in O, a high-school rendering of
Othello, the release of which was delayed for two years because it was
feared its violence would attract negative publicity. Hartnett plays the
Iago character, Hugo, so we will see then if he is capable of evil as
well as cute.
When he is home, he paints and sees his friends, who are, he says,
determinedly unruffled by his fame. In the past, Hartnett has resolutely
refused to discuss his private life, although rumour has it he briefly
dated Brazilian model Gisčle Bündchen.
On his website, however, his fans claim to have found proof that - oh
no! - he does indeed have a woman in his life, and have posted a picture
first published by the National Enquirer of the actor with Ellen
Fenster, a girl he supposedly went to school with. 'Oh well, at least
he's happy,' says one distraught fan. Weep, weep.
At the merest mention of girls, Hartnett's voice trickles away to an
almost inaudible mutter. It's like asking your kid brother what he got
up to at the school disco. Luckily, he is saved by the bell. The door of
the room opens and two publicists troop in to retrieve their charge. I
must leave now because Josh is going to have a lunch break. 'So you get
time off to eat,' I say. 'Yeah,' says Josh, rolling his eyes. He unfolds
himself from his chair, puts his hands in the back pockets of his jeans
and heads in the direction of the sandwiches.
'You know, I'm not interested in fighting the publicity machine,' he
says. 'That's not my fight. There are other things I want to fight for.
I want interesting roles. I want to do some good in the world.' Poor
boy. He'll learn, I guess.
*40 Days and 40 Nights will open on 31 May
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
Jaime
The One
news:ucfevkp...@corp.supernews.com...
> Hart throb
>
> Hollywood's hottest new poster boy is Josh Hartnett, the chisel-jawed
> star of Pearl Harbour and Black Hawk Down. But behind all the hype
He really is just adorable. I know, I know.
Regina
--
Remove the "nospam" from my e-mail to e-mail me
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet..."
--T.S. Eliot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim Phobos
If he can carry 2 movies to 100 Million domestically in the space of 5
years then I'll believe he's anything but the next Freddie Prinze.
Tim
Mud436
Quizzer922
Greg The A-Hole
pretty-boy whining because he couldn't have sex for 40 whole days. I
was hoping that the last scene in the movie would be him finally
losing control and having sex with a hooker, who then tells him that
she is dying of AIDS. I would have watched THAT.
Greg The Asshole
Frequest guest of the Bob Freeman Show
http://www.BobFreemanShow.com