For a time,Josh Hartnett’s name was synonymous with “Hollywood heartthrob.” Since his acting debut inHalloween H20: 20 Years Later, however, the actor has worked with some of the heaviest hitters in the business, includingSofia Coppola,Michael Bay,Ridley Scott,Quentin Tarantino,Brian de Palma,Christopher Nolan—the list goes on. Now, he’s returning to his genre roots in what may be his darkest role yet, for his first-ever team-up withM. Night Shyamalanin the horror thrillerTrap.
In the film, Hartnett plays dad of the year Cooper when he takes his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to the concert of fictional popstar Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). While surrounded by screaming fans, Cooper discoverseverything isn’t as it seemsat this event, but that it’s actually a trap for the notorious serial killer known as The Butcher.Trapalso featuresHayley Mills,Alison Pill,Kid Cudi, andMarnie McPhail.
In this interview with Collider’sSteve Weintraub, Hartnett discusses the challenges this role presented, from researching serial killers to embodying a villain the audience needs to root for “to an extent.” He talks about which scene had him worried, what was fun about the role, and teases his upcoming action movieFight or Flight, oppositeThe Mandalorian’sKatee Sackhoff.
A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they’ve entered the center of a dark and sinister event.
Josh Hartnett Teases His Action Movie ‘Fight or Flight’
COLLIDER: You’ve done a lot of cool roles. What do you consider the toughest shot or sequence of your career thus far?
JOSH HARTNETT: I’ve got a film coming out calledFight or Flight,where I do my own stunts. I’m 46. I was 45 when I shot it. It’s different from when you’re in your twenties. We had a very long shot in that film whereI am fighting an enormous amount of bad guys on a plane, in a close-counter environment, and using things off the plane to fight them. You just don’t recover the way you used to, you know? So, I found that to be the toughest physical thing I’ve ever had to do.
Emotionally and psychologically, maybe some of the stuff in this fits into that category. We had a lot of fun making this film, andthis character was so bonkers and so light and so dark—Night called it neon-colored.For an actor, that’s fantastic. But the research into this was not so fantastic. Learning about serial killers, learning about the way they operate, and learning how many sociopaths and psychopaths there are out there wasn’t great. It wasn’t nice. But to be able to put it to good use and make this a fun ride was great.
Josh Hartnett Convinces the Audience to Root for a Killer
“We have to, in some way, want to see him escape.”
The biggest challenge is that you’re on screen 99% of the time, and you need to make sure that the audience is never rooting for you while at the same time being compelling on screen. I think that’s a really hard challenge.
HARTNETT: It was a really hard challenge, but I think that Night knew from the beginning that was the conceit of the movie. You have to tell people up frontthis guy is a villainous character, but we have to, in some way, want to see him escapeto an extent, because that’s the conceit of the film. That is what the film is about. It is like a ‘90s-style throwback, contained thriller where there’s a character that needs to escape an uncomfortable situation or a scary situation—a death-defying situation. He’s an entertaining guy, necessarily, because he’s a psychopath who doesn’t care about the way his interactions are going to affect anyone. He’s not empathetic, so he’s able to sort of exist outside of the pressure, and he’s kind of actually turned on by the pressure. I think all of that stuff leads the character to be more and more entertaining as the film goes on. The more you learn about his darkness, the more entertaining he becomes. I think that people’s fascination with serial killers, as well, kind of helps.
Josh Hartnett Admits He Was Scared of ‘Trap’s Final Sequence
“I love a challenge, but it was definitely daunting.”
So you see the shooting schedule. What day did you circle in terms of, “I can’t wait to film this,” and what day did you circle in terms of, “Oh, we gotta film this?”
HARTNETT: The final sequence of the film was worrying to me because if that doesn’t work, the whole thing doesn’t work. That has to be revelatory and honest and intriguing and different than you’ve seen before. So that was the thing that gave me pause and that I was scared of. As far as the fun stuff, at the beginning of the film, as we’re starting to just get a sense of who he is and what he does, those little moments that just pop through the veneer, those are gonna be a lot of fun. How much do we give away? When he’s confronted with the reality of the situation he’s in, when he feels like the trap is closing in on him, how does the veneer crack, and what is it that we see inside of that? How much darkness do we see? Those scenes were fun because they were a tightwire. If the characterization didn’t work at any point in the film, the film fails, and that was the major challenge of taking this on. I love a challenge, but it was definitely daunting.
