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

Everything exceeded my expectations back then

because I had no concept of what the movie business was

and to go from film to film, I just thought

that's the way it was.

Once you started making movies,

then you just made all the movies.

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Josh Hartnett and this is the timeline of my career.

[upbeat music]

[intense music]

Alright, fuck this, I'm outta here.

I wasn't actually interested in film acting,

I was interested in films.

I thought maybe I'd want

to direct if I could ever find a way to direct,

I loved the art of filmmaking

and would watch like movie after movie each night.

And I fell in love with Federico Fellini and Louis Malle

and Fred Lucci and like a ton

of really just amazing filmmakers.

That was sort of my film school.

Halloween H20 was the first film that I made,

but I was cast first

for The Faculty.

Just on this TV show called Cracker.

I was actually still working on it

and someone asked me if I'd audition

for a couple of movies.

Met Robert Rodriguez, hadn't read the script,

and he cast me on the spot essentially for Zeke.

Many years afterward,

I was like, why?

What'd you see in me?

Like I didn't know what I was doing.

He was like,

It's precisely because you didn't know what you were doing.

You were like too cool to have read the script

that I thought you'd be perfect for Zeke.

And I was like, it wasn't that I was too cool.

It was just, I didn't know at all.

Robert is such an inclusive director, he 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.

And so he has this sense that like everything is sort

of homemade and fun

and anything is possible as long as you get it in the can.

I learned a lot from Robert on that one.

I also like Jon Stewart.

Look, sorry to impose and disrupt Mr. Furlong, but-

If you kindly take your seats,

this will be over quite quickly.

Sit down!

He hadn't released his first book yet,

but he's like tested some of the material out on us.

Let me read an early edition of it

and John Stewart became who he is clearly.

I don't know,

it was just such a weird eclectic group of people.

Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth,

and all the rest of the adult actors.

They didn't really mingle with us younger actors.

We were our own little crew, you know,

we could watch them work

but really they were all sort of enigmatic to us.

I was just trying to pick it up as I went along

and I had no concept of like craft,

but 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 time.

Like Elijah really had an idea of

how he wanted to make that character.

Just trying to fake it.

[Narrator] On this particular day

he ran into Mr. Woodhouse in the hall

and ducked into the nearest class.

[suspenseful music]

Meeting Sophia for Virgin Suicides,

I could see the artistry in her bearing.

She just is an artist.

I obviously knew her father was, I had an expectation of

what she would be doing based off of his work.

He was producing it, so I expected like him

to have a strong hand in the filmmaking process

and none of that was true.

All of my expectations were false.

She decided to write her own version of the script

and deliver it to the producers and they loved her script.

And then she pitched them on her being a first time

director and they said yes.

I mean that takes incredible gumption

and yet she is like the quietest, most

sane director in the world.

And I just respected her entirely.

She had an enormous amount of integrity, a rare talent,

and being able to capture something

that's absolutely spectacular and beautiful and ephemeral

and do it with such ease

and grace as opposed to being something

that's like a monster.

A film set can be a monster, it can be a real brutish thing

that you've gotta work really hard

to get these shots in this amount of hours.

With Sophia,

there was just always an ease about the film set

and that was exciting.

And I think those films, those initial films sort

of spoiled me, made me think

that all film processes would be that way

and not all of 'em are.

Some of 'em are harder work, but I had a lot

of fun on those first films.

My dad took me up a couple times,

just don't do what he did.

What do you call it when you flip over?

A barrel roll? Yeah.

[character screams] [engine roars]

Pearl Harbor was by far the biggest film

that I've worked on

and I was trepidatious about it

because I was very happy with the amount of work

that I was getting and the type

of directors I was working with.

And was I think getting a reputation for

being an actor that would play a lot

of different types of roles.

I'd played Iago essentially in a modern adaptation

of Othello, an arche-typical bad guy,

and Trip Fontaine isn't necessarily a very nice guy either.

And then very kind of innocent and fun in other roles

and was able to kind

of work on all these different characters

and I 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

big film because you're afraid of, you know,

traditional success or something.

And so I decided maybe I'll take the scary path

and be a part of it.

[dramatic music] [waves crashing]

You read the script and you know it's not gonna be a direct

historical film.

It is a romance.

And you know, a few years after Titanic had come out

and they wanted to capitalize on a similar sort of audience

and that Michael Bay makes big spectacle films.

He's interested in large aspects of filmmaking

and it's not necessarily about the intimate moments.

That said, I get along with Michael really well.

I think a lot of people at that time were saying

that he's a very difficult director to work with

and blah blah blah blah blah blah and like watch out.

And I didn't have that experience at all.

I think Ben took the brunt of some

of Michael's unhappiness at times,

whenever things would go wrong.

But they already had a relationship.

But I didn't have that experience.

I think maybe because I was so green

that he just took it easy on me.

You left her to fight somebody else's war

and you made damn sure that I didn't go with you

and we thought that you were dead.

I almost did die. Your little son of a bitch!

Her face was the last thing that went through my mind.

So don't stay in here and tell me act like it's all right.

Yeah, well I stayed.

In the end the movie was popular

and I was on the cover of a lot of magazines

and it did change the way that people perceived me.

Like I sort of anticipated.

But I guess I didn't anticipate like how

that would feel to be inside of it as opposed

to like seeing it from the outside.

Viewing somebody in the midst of sort of

a celebrity moment is different than

what it feels like on the inside.

And at the age of was like 21,

I didn't have the foresight sort of understand that.

I guess I would say that it felt simultaneously exciting

because everybody was interested in me being in

their next film and I was able to go work

with Ridley Scott directly afterward.

I was able to work

with Harrison Ford not too long after that.

I was able to kind of work with people

that I'd always admired.

The other side of the business,

the sort of celebrity aspect

of it wasn't really my thing.

I didn't fit in with that celebrity moment,

which was very MTV at the time, you know?

And I wasn't really that kind of a guy

and I think I was too young

to have found myself as a human being.

And so I was trying to find myself in the midst

of everyone else defining me.

And I just found myself feeling a little bit frustrated

that I wasn't being represented the way that I wanted

to be represented, which isn't the way it works,

but I didn't know that 'cause I was too young.

It felt discombobulating

and I looked for, you know, the things

that I find most stabilizing,

which is like family and friends back home.

Go, go Blackbird. [copter chopping]

OPT! [weapons firing]

Hold on!

No!

It was a natural progression for me

because it happened so organically.

We had finished Pearl Harbor, Jerry Bruckheimer called me

and said, Would you like to meet Ridley Scott?

And I was like, yes, we had a great conversation

and he was like, Would you like to play this role?

And I said, Absolutely.

And I happened to be the first one cast.

It is an ensemble film so I didn't ever expect

to be on the poster or anything like that.

It was just I wanted to work with Ridley,

I wanna see his process.

I wanted to be a part of it

because I was the first one cast.

I didn't know how stacked the cast would be.

But it is just filled with so many amazing actors.

Entirely different directing styles

between Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor.

I wouldn't compare the two except for the fact

that they both exist in a overarching genre of war film.

They don't have much else in the way

of like narrative comparison or aesthetic comparison.

They could be completely different genres.

And I think in a way they are,

even though Jerry Bruckheimer

is the obvious connective tissue

there, having produced them both.

But I tried not to compare them at all.

I was more looking at what Ridley had done recently

and trying to kind of live up to

what I believed were the sort

of amazing performances in his

films over the last few years.

And again, still trying to figure out how to act, which is,

you know, also, you know, daunting.

No sex for Lent for 40 days.

If I can do that then everything will be okay.

That isn't what Lent is.

Lent is about sacrifice

and growth through self-denial.

Lent is to remember- Remember how Christ

felt during the fast and desert.

I know exactly what it is.

I grew up in the same house

as you, moron. 40 Days and 40 Nights

is probably not a traditional choice to make.

I wouldn't probably go back

and do the same thing.

Although I really enjoyed the process of working

with Michael Lehmann and the writer became a friend of mine.

Oh, oh. Ow.

Watch that.

I'll talk to you soon. Okay.

Okay. Very soon.

Like tomorrow, I'll give you a call.

The thing is of its time,

but it was different for its time.

You know, it was trying to twist the concept of the things

that were happening at that time and there were a lot

of like sexy comedies being made.

And I thought this was funnier

because it was an anti-sexy comedy.

It probably didn't age well.

I haven't seen it in a long time.

I haven't seen it since it came out.

Every chance I get to make a comedy, I wanna go do it

because I just, I love being on a comedic set.

You get the most instant gratification.

You know when you're on a drama,

maybe things are working in the right direction

and it might work out, but there's so many things

that could go wrong in the edit.

On a comedy, if it's not funny, you can tell that on set.

But when it is funny, you know that too.

And so you get to go home feeling good about yourself.

And even though it's very difficult

to do, sometimes you make really funny scenes.

She only goes stiff for a moment. Care for a smoke?

Sure, I'll take one.

Are you as bored by that crowd as I am?

I didn't come here for the party, came here for you.

Robert Rodriguez and I had maintained contact since doing

The Faculty because I had said to Robert on set,

supposedly.

I 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 you, I'll do it.

Thank you for casting me in my first film.

I might've said that,

I don't know, you'll have to ask Robert.

So Robert called me

and he said, Time to cash in those chips.

I've got this movie I really wanna do called 'Sin City.'

Frank Miller's unsure, it's his baby.

Will you come down

to Austin so I can show him what I want to do with it,

and we'll just shoot one scene.

Frank's gonna be there,

and we can all sort of talk about it.

I said, Yes, of course I will, Robert, because I owe you.

And so I came down

and then Frank got very excited about the scene.

He loved the visuals.

Robert was in real time on the screen basically showing

what the shot would look like.

We were shooting on green obviously,

but you could get a sense of what it was gonna look like

and that really intense black and white.

It was unlike anything that had been done before.

And I was like, you guys are gonna make the coolest movie.

See you later.

After we had dinner

and I went off to shoot something else

and a couple months later he said, Josh,

will you come back down and shoot one more scene?

I think we're gonna put the scene in the movie.

I said, Absolutely.

And I came down and they were just like in the midst

of finishing the film and they made this wonderful film.

It's great experience. They had a wonderful time.

Apparently. I wasn't there for it.

I had no involvement.

So thank you Robert.

So I shoot the last scene, two minutes

just standing in an elevator

and then they put it in the film.

Do you want to gimme $96,000?

No. Do you want to give me $96,000?

No. Should I?

I don't know.

Should you?

I don't know, should I?

Paul is a notoriously malcontented human being

and he's Scottish and I love him to death.

He's got a really nice accent. He wears really nice hats.

He's just like a real character

and he's just always very upset with everything.

But underneath that sort of like grumpy exterior,

he's a real artist.

He's like an absolute artist.

And on Wicker Park there were things that he wanted to do

that I know he couldn't fit into that film

and that framework.

You could just see

that there was something that he was struggling to get out.

'cause he had done this movie called Gangster Number One

that had a lot more sort of a sort of a rough edge to it.

And we wanted that for Lucky Number Slevin.

We did a little rewriting, a little tweaking,

and my buddy Jason, he said,

What do you think about a towel?

And I was like, What do you mean?

He's like, Well,

do you think Slevin should be wearing a towel

for the first bit of the movie?

Like he just got outta the shower.

And I was like, Yes.

That's an amazing idea.

How to make yourself as un-threatening

as possible when you're going to try

to kill a couple of drug lords.

Boom, there it is.

[creature growls] [intense music]

[weapon firing] [items crashing]

When I spoke to John Logan about the character to begin

with, it's all about tragedy and secrets, right?

He's dealing with something that feels like a trauma

that he can't articulate and he's having these blackouts

and there are other symptoms that kind of go into

that, like his alcoholism

and all that sort of stuff that I feel like could be neatly

placed on other things that are more human.

And so I didn't have to go very far to sort of understand

where he might be coming from.

I don't think he, at the beginning of this,

knew exactly what he was.

He's running, he's just constantly running.

He's as far away from where he came from as possible.

How do you develop that character?

We had a big open slate

and I had a lot of good conversations with John Logan.

We got to a point where we were able to sort of come up with

that season three arc,

Brian Cox playing my father, which was amazing.

The whole experience of working on something

for a long time with a long arc like that

was very satisfying.

It's a difficult one

because you can get in a situation

where you could just let him be a werewolf and that's it.

Like that's the big reveal and that's it.

I'm really glad that they were interested in kind

of exploring how he became who he is

and how he deals with it and where he goes from there.

You must be Oppenheimer.

Yes.

I hear you want start a school of quantum theory.

I am starting it next door.

They put you in there.

I asked for it, I wanted to be close to you

experimentalists.

Theory will get you only so far.

I knew Chris from earlier in my career.

We didn't work together

and there's all sorts of, you know, conjecture

and, you know, conversations that go on around this.

I was never offered Batman, so like,

let's like put that to bed.

Chris has said it, I've said it multiple times.

We just talked about it.

I thought maybe I'd never hear from him again.

It was a big regret of mine that I didn't pursue working

with him with like more vigor back when I was younger

because I knew he was a fantastic filmmaker

and I knew that being able to sort

of like foster relationships with great filmmakers is really

what this business is about as an actor.

And then he brought me this script, I read it

and we talked about Ernest Lawrence

and he told me right off the bat, he's like,

this is a real character.

There are a lot of characters in this,

but this character is important.

Killian's the lead. We've got this other guy.

Then it's like, it's gonna be a big deal.

And I was, I was flattered,

really flattered to be a part of that crew.

I feel like I could see one of those

dark stars that you're working on.

You can't, it's the whole point. Gravity swallows light.

It's like a kind of hole in space.

What's amazing about working with Chris Nolan is

that everybody there knows how important the film could be,

how wonderful the film could be because of his presence

and is there to help him make it wonderful.

And nobody's there to kind of give themselves, you know,

a big ego kick.

'cause you can't, there's like, no, there's no structure for

that on a Chris Nolan set.

You're all there just working.

You don't even have a chair to sit on.

You're literally there focused on it.

All the crew members are people

that have worked with Chris in the past.

So it feels like a family.

That's a overused phrase, but it really does.

It's a wonderful experience, and I would

do it again in a heartbeat.

[body thuds] [crowd exclaims]

What happened?

I think that woman drank too much.

Lost her balance.

Let's clear out and give her some space.

I've always wanted to work with Knight.

I would've probably

done almost anything with Knight

'cause I've always found him to be one

of the most fascinating filmmakers in our business.

Terribly underrated sometimes for his amazing abilities

as just a straight teller

of interesting stories.

In this situation,

what really highlighted my interest, the character Cooper is

so neon colored.

He's so dark and he's so light

and there's so much in between

and it needs to all be grounded somehow.

Hey, we should climb down and see where it leads.

Looks really cool.

What?

Wouldn't it be unbelievable to see what's down there?

You see how they put on the show?

There might be costumes and things.

That's crazy.

We can't go down there. You're acting strange.

Is something wrong, Dad?

No.

Knight's gonna use

his camera the way that he uses his camera.

He's going to approach this thriller genre the way he

does from a different angle.

He's gonna make his traditional

antagonist into a protagonist.

And so people are gonna have to follow this character

and be interested in him the whole way through.

And there are very few films probably that I've seen

where I would follow a character like this through

to the end and still feel

like I understood what the journey was for him, you know,

and that was our challenge.

And I feel like when a challenge like that

is put in your lap, you have to take it.

It's just, it's so rare to be able

to get a role like that.

[upbeat music]

We all have this like innate ability in our youth to kind

of like find our own way

and make sure that we know what direction we want to head

before we listen to other people.

And we try, we fight against the sort

of social norms coming in and restricting our choices.

You just gotta try to hold onto it.

It's really rewarding when it works out.

And even if it doesn't work out, it still feels okay.