Josh Hartnett (!) Is the Action Hero We Need

"People like a comeback story," Josh Hartnett tells me. "Even if I was here the whole time."

It's a Wednesday morning in early May, and Hartnett and I are discussing his return to the spotlight at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York City. For an actor who supposedly "left Hollywood" in the early 2000s, the forty-six year-old seems as busy as ever. It’s the second time that he’s made the trip from his home in England to New York for a film in the past month. Naturally, he's incredibly jet-lagged.

"It's strange living in a hotel," Hartnett tells me as he sips his coffee. He's wearing a navy button-up, a blue baseball cap, and jeans—the quintessential dad outfit. "I spend so much time at home now with four kids. But when I'm making films, that's kind of what I do—live in hotels," he says. "It totally used to be the best thing ever when I was younger, people cleaning up after me and stuff like that. But now I miss my family."

As we talk through fond memories of his young life coming up in New York, I can't help but notice that our room at the Crosby Hotel is furnished with a staggering amount of dog artwork. Normally, I would ask what he thinks about the many canine portraits and whimsical sculptures surrounding us—it genuinely feels as if the pups are staring into our souls—but we're both a bit distracted this morning. For Hartnett, it's the jet lag. Myself? Well, I just watched Hartnett kill a man with a chainsaw in his new action flick, Fight or Flight.

The film, which premiered in theaters this past weekend, stars Hartnett as a disavowed secret service agent who is still as strong as an ox—even with a gut full of booze. (Stronger, even.) In exchange for his freedom, the former agent is roped into protecting an asset on a dangerous flight full of assassins. Fight or Flight is fun, outlandishly violent, and full of incredibly impressive action choreography.

The indie fight-fest is also the latest entry in the media-dubbed Hartnettaissance, an era of exceptionally stellar performances from the ‘90s Hollywood heartthrob. Recent Hartnett hits include M. Night Shyamalan's Trap, a cameo in The Bear, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Though Hartnett is clearly grateful for his comeback moment, he maintains that he still works in the industry on his own terms.

“Whatever anybody wants to call it, if the work that I've been doing is helping me get the jobs that I'm able to do right now, which I think it is, then I'm all for it,” Hartnett says. “I've always had a lot of luck working with really talented people. In this particular time, I'm just working with super talented people who also have the reach to get their movies seen.”

True to his word, the actor took on Fight or Flight not because it had major financing or big-name producers, but because he simply believed in the project. As the story goes, first-time filmmaker James Madigan allowed Hartnett to perform all his own stunts. And for a film comprised of several claustrophobic, close-quartered fights, it’s amazing that Hartnett left the project in one piece.

“I wanted to see if I could do it,” Hartnett says. “I was 44 years old when they sent me the idea, and I thought, Nobody's sending me scripts to do action anymore. How fun would it be to do that? I was like, Okay, well if Keanu can do it, I'm going to give it a shot.”

Below, Hartnett shares how he truly feels about the Hartnettaissance, why he wanted to do his own stunts in Fight or Flight, and the advice that Robert Downey Jr. gave him after Oppenheimer.

"I loved doing comedy and for a long time in my career, nobody saw me doing it," Hartnett says.

ESQUIRE: Even though Fight or Flight is finally coming out now, you actually shot this film before Trap, right?

JOSH HARTNETT: Yeah, we shot this two and a half years ago and then it sort of languished. It was at a studio that was going through some problems and some changes in management. So, we finally shopped it around a little on the sly. Vertical was very excited about it and they were giving it a lot of attention. And then funnily enough, we sold it back to the studio that let it go. It seems like recently there's been quite a few movies that have an action-comedy element to it. I really hope people do see it, because it was so much fun to make. I really think it's one of the most entertaining pieces of $10 million filmmaking that you have out.

Why were you interested in doing an action film, especially one where you do your own stunts?

It was just a lot of fun. I was 44 when we shot it, and the last time I'd done all my own stunts was for a movie called Bunraku when I was 29. Different set of circumstances, different body. But I loved doing comedy and for a long time in my career, nobody saw me doing it. What Jim [Madigan] told me initially when we first decided to do it was he wanted the fight sequences to be musical numbers, like old-fashioned musicals. It is actually a part of the storyline and the characters learn something over the course of it, or they—in this case—get really hurt and it changes the nature of the next scene. That puts the character first, and that’s always nice to hear as an actor.

"I like extreme characterizations and gaining a lot of muscle, so I had kind of like a drinker's body," Hartnett says about his Fight or Flight character.

Were you influenced by any action stars before filming Fight or Flight?

I hate to be wanky and go overseas, but Takeshi Kitano’s The Blind Swordsman really stuck with me. Not just for the fighting, but also the craziness. And the same thing with Kung Fu Hustle. I thought there was room for us to do something that was a bit more openly playful. There were some things that I did that were fun for this character. I like extreme characterizations and gaining a lot of muscle, so I had kind of like a drinker's body. The hair thing, of course, was funny. Doing action sequences pretending to be on toad venom, like that scene that from Wolf of Wall Street where DiCaprio is crawling back to his Ferrari. It was like, What if that guy had to fight? And our Director of Photography was amazing. He did The Raid and Gangs of London, and we wanted the fights to feel real and the punches to hurt, but we also wanted it to seem very over the top. A lot of people just view these films as B movies, but it's fun and it's supposed to be entertaining.

There's no A-movie version of this.

No. And why would you even try to do that? I've been talking a lot about the state of the movie business with people over the years, and people need to calm down. Everything's cyclical and we just have to chill out for a second and not lose our heads about where the business is going, or label everything doom and gloom. I love the experience of going to a theater and watching a film with other people. The energy's infectious. I remember being a kid and seeing the first Batman by Tim Burton, and wanting to go buy another ticket to watch it again. It just means more than watching it at home. People don’t seem to be going to the theaters in the same numbers. But I hope people will come back around to that.

I think that people still enjoy going to the movies. They just need the right movie to see.

Yeah, and that movie is Fight or Flight. [Laughs.]

You once said that when you were younger, you thought directors liked that you were green because it meant that they could get you to do whatever they wanted. Do you feel the reverse now that you’re the veteran actor working with a first-time director?

Directors still get me to do the stuff that they want me to do. But I'm more game for that now. I feel less defined by the movies that I'm making. When I was younger, I was still defining myself as a person, and so each time I put myself out there in public, I felt like it was really having an impact on how people saw me. And maybe this will do that too, to an extent, but I think people have a pretty good idea of who I am now.

So that's why I wasn't afraid to do something like Trap where the character is so messed up. Recently, somebody was telling me a story about Anthony Hopkins after he did Silence of the Lambs. He was introduced to the world basically as Hannibal Lector, even though he done a ton of work. And he said, "Everywhere I went, everybody was terrified of me." I wouldn't have wanted that reaction in my life, but I had faith that people had seen other things that I'd done, and they wouldn't be directly terrified of me. So, Trap was a plausible pick. But in this one, I don’t think I shifted any of Jim's initial concept of what he wanted from it, tonally. I added little things that I thought would be fun. But directors, I think, just generally have more faith in me these days. Maybe that does have something to do with age and experience.

"I've been talking a lot about the state of the movie business with people over the years, and I think people need to calm down," Hartnett says.

Hollywood basically declared that you had left the acting world, and have now suddenly returned. But you’ve been a working actor this entire time. Do you find that strange at all?

I don't know, it's a narrative. We live in a world of narratives. I do it for a living. But I was making movies. Worthy films like Inherit The Viper and Oh Lucy! And a lot of really small, cool films.

Does the narrative bother you? Do you wish everyone just moved on?

Not on a daily basis. You know what I mean? I would like the narrative to be more straight-up—that I was doing interesting movies, and then maybe that would draw some attention to those movies—but it doesn't bother me. It's nice that people have an interest and that helps me get work. But I really don't think about it that much, honestly.

Do you think it's had any sort of tangible effect the opportunities you'd received recently, like your cameo in The Bear?

I don't know that the directors I'm working with really pay attention to that stuff. It’s possible that I'm more viable as a contributor to their film because the business side of it sees me a little bit differently after being in some bigger movies Maybe that makes it possible for them to cast me. But I don't think that they're reading the Daily Mail and going, "Now I'm going to cast him."

With The Bear, I've known Chris Storer for a long time. I was going to do his first film, but it never got made. He was a young, first-time filmmaker, same sort of situation, and I really thought he was going to be amazing. Clearly, I was right on that one, but he couldn't get the budget together. And then a couple years went by, and I saw The Bear come out. It had become a phenomenon already by the time I'd seen it. So, I just texted him right away. I was like, "Holy shit, you did it, man. Congratulations. This is incredible." And he was like, "Hartnett! You want to come be in it?" I immediately said, "Yeah!"

How did it feel to win the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the Oppenheimer cast?

That was an ensemble situation, so that was cool. It was nice to be up there, but it wasn't for me. You know what I mean?

You were a part of it!

Yeah, I don't know. I remember Robert Downey Jr. turning to me afterward. I was just congratulating everybody. He goes, "You're unflapped! You're unflappable." And I was like, "Well, it's not about me." I just didn’t think it was, and I still don’t, really. But he goes, "Why don't we just take it in?" He likes to really hit you just where... you know? I love that about him.