Universal Pictures/Warner Bros.
After becoming a massive movie star in the early 2000s — he famously met with Christopher Nolan about playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins — Josh Hartnett vanished from Hollywood for the majority of the 2010s.
Hartnett, now 46 years old, appeared in 16 feature films between 2001 and 2007, including projects such as Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor, Sin City, The Black Dahlia, and 30 Days of Night. From 2008 to 2019, however, Josh Hartnett appeared in just 12 movies, none of which were particularly notable.
Things began to change in the 2020s, however, beginning with a pair of Guy Ritchie movies in 2021 and 2023: Wrath of Man and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. Then, in 2023, he had a relatively major role in Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture-winning Oppenheimer and is now starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie Trap.
He’s also had recent roles in TV shows such as Black Mirror and The Bear and is attached to upcoming projects such as Fight or Flight and The Last Draw of Jack of Hearts. And while these are just rumors, there have been murmurs he’s in contention to play Harvey Dent, a.k.a Two-Face, in The Batman: Part II.
Now that he’s back in the public eye, it begs the question of where did Josh Hartnett go? The recently resurgent actor answered that very question in a recent interview, attributing his decision to the stresses of fame and the weirdness that comes with it.
“I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work. And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up,” Hartnett said in an interview with The Guardian ahead of the release of his new film Trap. “And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn’t want that for myself.”
“Well, look, I don’t want to give this a lot of weight. There were incidents,” he explained. “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.”
Trap, which will be released in movie theaters on Friday, August 2, also stars Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, Alison Pill, Marnie McPhail, Vanessa Smythe, and Kid Cudi. Check out the official trailer below.