Actor Josh Hartnett is set to appear in the highly-anticipated M. Night Shyamalan flick Trap. The movie marks another big Hollywood return for the actor who previously appeared in such hits as Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down. His early career included The Faculty and Halloween: 20 Years Later. Of course, there have been times where he took a break from his Hollywood career, and now Josh Hartnett has explained why.
According to Hartnett, it seems as though his popularity made it too difficult to keep working in Hollywood. This actually forced him to rethink some of his roles, and furthermore, he passed on the role of Superman as many as two different times. When hearing Hartnett’s strange encounters with certain fans, however, it’s not surprising to understand why.
Here’s what he shared via The Guardian:
“I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work,” Hartnett said. “And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn’t want that for myself.”
He also added that “people’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy.” The examples he gave are quite shocking.
“Well, look, I don’t want to give this a lot of weight. There were incidents,” Hartnett said. “People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me. A guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in prison. There were lots of things. It was a weird time. And I wasn’t going to be grist for the mill.”
Obviously this meant that Hartnett had to give up certain roles as a result. Fortunately, fans were still quite happy to see the projects he did choose to act in, with one recent example being Oppenheimer. This happened after Hartnett previously lost the opportunity to work with Nolan on The Prestige.
As such, it seems as though things in Hollywood have worked out for Josh Hartnett. Especially if Trap turns out to be as exciting of a thriller as the trailers make it out to be. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional Josh Hartnett updates as we have them.