Josh Hartnett has insisted he didn’t throw away his acting career but took time out to “find himself” and work on smaller projects.
The 42-year-old actor wowed Hollywood with high profile roles in movies such as The Virgin Suicides, Pearl Harbor, and O, before seemingly disappearing from the spotlight.
However, the Penny Dreadful star denies walking away from fame, insisting it “was me just sort of finding myself”.
“The story is that I’m some recluse or malcontent or something,” Hartnett told Entertainment Tonight. “But I never felt that way… I was never inactive, I was just doing other things.”
Hartnett explained how he didn’t want to take on the projects he was being offered and rejected his heartthrob status.
“I think when I was younger, I was fighting against a concept I had of myself within the industry, and I didn’t feel like the movies that I wanted to do I was being offered – and then the movies that I was being offered, I couldn’t do those either because I wanted to maintain my integrity,” the actor recalled.
So he decided to take things into his own hands by producing his own films and working on smaller independent projects.
The Black Dahlia star continued: “People took that as me throwing away a career or something, but it wasn’t that at all, in my opinion.
“I did take some time off, but I mostly took some time off to do other things, like raise my children,” he continued. “I started to write a lot. I wrote a few scripts, wrote a few short music videos, and started producing.”
Hartnett added his relationship with Hollywood hasn’t changed and he’s still “doing the thing that I want to do.”
“It’s difficult to make movies in this industry if you’re trying to make personal films,” he stressed.
“Luckily, I have been able to come in contact, especially recently, with a lot of filmmakers and people that are on board with hiring me to play the kind of roles I want to play. So I’ve been kind of lucky these days.”
