Recluse Josh Hartnett Reveals Petrifying Reason He Quit Hollywood for Country Life: ‘Stalkers Would Turn Up at My House — One Guy Had a Gun Claiming to be my Dad... He Went to Prison’
Josh Hartnett has revealed the real reason why he disappeared from Hollywood 20 years ago.
July 29 2024, Published 12:00 p.m. ET
Actor Josh Hartnett has revealed one of the main reasons why he quit Hollywood for a life in the country just as his career was starting to skyrocket – and the reason may surprise you.
Hartnett, 46, turned his back on Tinseltown almost 20 years ago because he was being stalked.
He said: “People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me.”
The Pearl Harbor star said: “People’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy.
“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.”
One particularly jarring incident unfolded when Hartnett was 27 and a man claiming to be his father appeared at a movie premiere while brandishing a gun.
Although no one was hurt during the encounter, the man ended up going to jail over the incident.
The Oppenheimer actor said: “A guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in prison.”
Hartnett, 46, starred in “Pearl Harbor” in 2001 followed by “Black Hawk Down” in 2002.
Hartnett, who was one of Hollywood’s most popular actors in the late 1990s and early 2000s, made a name for himself after starring opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later in 1998.
He went on to star as Captain Danny Walker in Pearl Harbor in 2001 and then as Matthew Eversmann in the 2002 smash hit Black Hawk Down.
But the Saint Paul, Minnesota native disappeared from La-La Land almost as quickly as he showed up – even after being offered the coveted roles of Superman and Batman.
Hartnett also admitted there were “lots of things” that made him ditch Hollywood despite the fact he was on the path to becoming the industry’s next hotshot A-list celebrity.
The 'Trap' star and his wife, Tamsin Egerton, 35, at a movie premiere earlier this year.
He told The Guardian: “There were lots of things. It was a weird time. And I wasn’t going to be grist for the mill.
“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. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it.
“I didn’t want that for myself.”
Now, nearly 20 years after leaving Hollywood behind, Hartnett has made a new life for himself in the United Kingdom alongside his 35-year-old wife, British actress Tamsin Egerton, and the couple’s four children.
Hartnett and Egerton live together in the United Kingdom with their four children.
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Hartnett and his family live together in the Hampshire countryside and, according to the Trap star, he “never would have expected it” after taking Hollywood by storm two decades ago.
He said: “This is all brand new to me. 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 eight and a half now – that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So, I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”
The Sin City star also noted how, when living in New York and Los Angeles, “people only want to talk about your career". But in Hampshire, “nobody cares”.
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