Josh Hartnett says Hollywood career ‘doesn’t amount to much’ without ‘good community and good family’

Josh Hartnett is opening up about the realities of being a working parent.

During a recent interview with Men’s Health, the actor shared how he is able to make his family his priority, saying he now leaves the emotions and experiences of his character on set in order to be fully present when he’s with his kids.

“Now that I have a family, when I go home at the end of the day, they don’t allow me the time to be self-indulgent and worry about what I did that day as a character, or stay in that mode,” he told the outlet. “There are things I have to do – kids are demanding and they need your time.”

The actor admitted it’s difficult to put the character aside, particularly on days when he has filmed dark material, telling the outlet a heavy episode of “Black Mirror” was “really hard to let go of afterward.”

JOSH HARTNETT EXPLAINS WHY HE WALKED AWAY FROM MAKING BIG MOVIES, CALLS THE INDUSTRY ‘OVERWHELMING’

One of the things that helps him reset after a rough day of filming is spending time with his family and his four pygmy goats on their farm.

“Making art, generally, is very important to me. But without a good stable background of good community and good family, it doesn’t really amount to much. You need the first for the second to work really well.”

“Now that I have a family, when I go home at the end of the day, they don’t allow me the time to be self-indulgent and worry about what I did that day as a character, or stay in that mode.”

— Josh Hartnett

Hartnett shares four children with his wife, Tamsin Egerton, however, they have chosen to keep their names and gender private.

After his breakout role in Sofia Coppola’s 1999 hit, “The Virgin Suicides,” Hartnett became a bona fide movie star, starring in nine movies throughout 2001, including “Pearl Harbor,” “Black Hawk Down” and “O.”

Following his role in “Pearl Harbor,” Hartnett rose to stardom, later choosing to step away from acting in big projects. (Kevin Winter/Touchstone Pictures/Getty Images.)

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Following a few more high-profile movies over the next few years, Hartnett decided to quietly take a step back from Hollywood, revealing he turned down a chance to star in two major superhero movies. 

“People’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy,” Hartnett told The Guardian earlier this month. “Well, look, I don’t want to give this a lot of weight. There were incidents. People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me.” 

In recent years, Hartnett has returned to more high-profile acting projects, having appeared in the 2023 summer blockbuster hit and best picture winner “Oppenheimer” and on an episode of the popular FX show “The Bear.”

He is currently promoting his new mysterious thriller, “Trap,” directed by M. Night Shyamalan. In the film, Hartnett portrays Cooper, a serial killer who takes his daughter to a concert, only to realize it was all a trap set up by the police to catch him.

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Hartnett is currently starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller, “Trap.” (Karwai Tang/WireImage)

“[He’s someone] who you end up kind of getting to know, and hopefully getting to sort of appreciate and understand…. Even though it’s really hard to understand someone like that,” he told Men’s Health. 

He continued: “The character has that very human element, that very normal instinct of father protecting daughter. But clearly he doesn’t interact with the other people in the world in the same way that a normal person would. It’s that connection that was really cool and unusual, and I haven’t seen any other characters like that in this genre before.”

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