The incredible hunk; Dunlevy, Dagmar
Flare   07-01-2006

Byline: Dunlevy, Dagmar
Volume: 28
Number: 7
ISSN: 07084927
Publication Date: 07-01-2006
Page: 40
Section: hype: DAGMAR
Type: Periodical
Language: English

Josh Hartnett on being Hollywood's most wanted leading man

Dagmar Dunlevy: How are you when it comes to money? Did you go through a starving-artist phase? Josh Hartnett: I think I had my first press conference when I was 19. I was straight out of the nest and I was lucky to have a steady income from the get-go. I went to college for nine months in New York and spent a few weekends just bumming around on the streets. I never really had a starving period. I'm pretty aware of my finances. This business is feast or WM famine. If I went the brass-ring route and just took what's handed to me in Hollywood, I could make a hell of a lot more money, but that's not necessarily a satisfying career. I don't make any wild investments and I don't own any tigers yet.

DD: Congratulations on being cast as Chet Baker. Do you think playing the jazz legend will be a difficult task? JH: Oh, yes. But I am going to go do Resurrecting the Champ with Samuel L. Jackson first. Rod Lurie's directing it. The Chet Baker story [The Prince of Cool] will be an enormously difficult task for me because he's nothing like me. It's a totally different world. I'll have to learn how to play the trumpet and it will take a lot of rehearsal, so it may not happen for a while, but we're trying to make it happen.

DD: You seem to be an actor who doesn't really concern himself with being a movie star. Is that true? JH: I think movie stardom should be a happy symptom of being a good actor. It should help you achieve good roles for the rest of your life and get you a great career. But I think movie stardom for movie stardom's sake can hinder your growth as an actor [and get you] stuck on some sort of conveyor belt. I don't really know if I'm navigating Hollywood correctly, but I'm trying to make my own way. I don't think about being a movie star. I think about getting my next interesting role. That's all that really matters.

DD: Do you believe luck has anything to do with career? JH: I've had a lot of lucky moments, and I'm superstitious. I try not to be, but I find myself at times tapping my feet three times or something. Maybe that's obsessive-compulsive disorder? My lucky number is 3. I like odd numbers. I used to only walk into rooms with my left foot first. When I was younger, I was more superstitious. As I've gotten older, I've found out there are so many random things in the world that you're just lucky to survive.

DD: Your girlfriend, Scarlett Johansson, also has a role in The Black Dahlia. What do you think of her as an actor? JH: She's an excellent actor. She's luminous. She's so talented you don't even know when she's acting-that's what's amazing. With Scarlett, I'm not even so sure she comes with any idea of what she wants. She just kind of lets it happen, and it's usually breathtaking.

DD: With your career and Scarlett's in full swing, how do you maintain a healthy relationship while pursuing your individual careers? JH: I think it's a challenge for anybody in this business. At some point, I'm going to have kids and I'm worried that maintaining a relationship with my children when I'm always traveling [isn't going to be easy]. If everyone's working at the same time, it's very difficult, so I don't think I have an answer. Relationships are hard enough-and in this business it's an added difficulty-but people stay together through prison time, so I think I can do this.

DD: You're a famous face now, but have you ever been mistaken for someone else? JH: When I was still chasing the brass ring, I was kind of in the middle of the media storm. I went to upstate New York for a county fair and these little girls were trailing behind me and, finally, one of them got the courage to say, "Are you really him?" And I said, "I guess I am really him." She goes, "Oh, my god! It's Heath Ledger!"

DD: What is one important lesson that you've learned? JH: If expectations are too high, you can get burned enormously. [For a while], I was picking projects rather flippantly. I was picking projects because I liked a certain person who I might work with or I liked an aspect of the character. [But] there are just so many conflicting opinions on set and I've learned that you have to protect yourself. Every choice you make is going to be judged harshly, so [you want to] make sure you like the character you are playing.

DD: What does being a great man mean to you? JH: It means to be an evolved and, hopefully, happy person. I don't look at men's and women's roles all that differently because I grew up with just my father. He kind of played both roles-not that he wore an apron or a dress, which he didn't. [Laughing] Being an adaptable, caring person, someone who really finds time for the people around him. I think the measure of a good man or a good woman is if their friends are benefiting from their friendship.

DD: It is obvious that you must have solid friendships, but do you also have a closeknit family? JH: Well, I do have a sister and two brothers. My relationship with them has always been the same. It's strained, like everybody else's relationship with their family, but we have a close connection. I moved out at 17, but I've been back and forth a lot. I'm back home [in Saint Paul, Minn., where Hartnett grew up) about a week out of every month, then I'm traveling the rest of the time when I'm working, so it's about the same as it's always been.

DD: What keeps you grounded? JH: The people around me keep me grounded. I have a good setup. I've been a lucky person since birth. I have a good family and I have friends who will take me down a couple of notches if I ever get too big for my britches-and who will bring me up if I ever get too low. The people in my life really want the best for me and, in turn, I want the best for them. If I can just hold on to that sort of stuff, there's no way I can go berserk. I went through a couple of years where I wasn't doing so well because I didn't expect all of this-I didn't know what to expect when I got into this business. When Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down came out, there was a lot expected of me. I didn't know how to react, really. I went away for a while. I wasn't in a good place. People have pulled me out of that and made me realize that life is way too short to hide. Nobody stays in the position they're in forever-whatever it is.
SIDEBAR
Working it at the NYC première of Lucky Number Slevin

JOSH UP CLOSE

* Born: San Francisco, July 21, 1978 * First gig: At 19, Josh was cast in the television show Cracker. * Notable roles: the swaggering Trip Fontaine in The Virgin Suicides, a horrified boyfriend in Wicker Park, the intense Othello in O and Capt. Danny Walker in Pearl Harbor * Inside story: He was offered the role of Superman but declined. * Up next: Hartnett's slated to star in the mystery The Black Dahlia with girlfriend Scarlett Johansson, the drama Resurrecting the Champ (alongside Samuel L. Jackson) and a Chet Baker biopic called The Prince of Cool.
SIDEBAR
"MOVIE STARDOM SHOULD BE A HAPPY SYMPTOM OF BEING A GOOD ACTOR"
SIDEBAR
Hartnett with Slevin Kin costar Lucy Liu
AUTHOR_AFFILIATION
Dagmar Dunlevy is a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and is our girl in Hollywood.the incredible hunk

Copyright Rogers Publishing Limited Jul 2006