Josh Hartnett was a major '90s celebrity crush for so many of us, but even after having huge roles in movies like Black Hawk Down and The Faculty early on in his career, he eventually disappeared from the spotlight. Now, Josh is speaking out about what made him walk away from the bigger roles he was offered in Hollywood in exchange for smaller roles, far less attention and celebrity status, and in turn, more freedom.
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These days, Josh's home base is in the United Kingdom.
He and wife Tamsin Egerton live on a farm in Hampshire, England, with their four children and plenty of animals, only leaving to do about one movie per year, and according to The Guardian, that's the way he likes it.
“I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work,” he 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.”
Josh never truly stopped acting, but he did stop taking high-profile roles.
That means that his celebrity heartthrob status faded into the background and he instead got to focus on his craft, something he said was much better for his overall well-being.
“People’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy," he said.
There were some scary incidents involving fans.
He called his rise to fame "a weird time," and from the way he tells it, it sounds like it was also a pretty scary one.
"People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me," he said, later adding, "a guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in prison."
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Now, he's able to spend time with his kids he wouldn't have had otherwise.
“This is all brand new to me,” he told the outlet. “I never would have expected it. And time passes quickly. With four children, you have so much to do. In a way, less is happening. But more of the important stuff is happening. My oldest daughter is 8 ½ now — that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”
He and Tamsin have always remained private about their family life, and that seems like another opportunity he would have missed if he'd fully given himself over to the bigtime Hollywood career he seemed to be perfectly poised for.
He seems much happier.
Between his recent cameo in The Bear and his role in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap, which hits theaters on August 2, fans still have plenty of opportunities to see him on screen.
Farm life does sound kind of peaceful, especially in contrast to the chaos of Hollywood.
