The Hartnett Renaissance or the “Hartnettaissance” if you will, is rolling along. Despite working steadily for years, Josh Hartnett popped back up on everyone’s radar after appearing in a supporting role in last year’s Oppenheimer and is now having a long overdue moment. If you’re wondering why one of Millennial’s biggest heartthrobs dipped out of sight, it was because the attention from his fame made him uncomfortable. It was also getting dangerous. Josh had stalkers, including someone who showed up at one of his premieres with a gun. He noped out and decided to live in the southern UK countryside with his wife and their four young children.
Josh is currently starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, Trap, which opened in theaters on Friday, August 2. The premise of the movie is that police are trying to track down a serial killer at a giant concert a la the Eras Tour. Hartnett’s character, who happens to be the person they’re looking for, has taken his daughter to that concert. To get into the mindset of playing a serial killer, Josh looked no further than some of society’s favorite suspected sociopaths. Ya know, like “CEOs, politicians, people in [show business].”
Josh Hartnett didn’t have to look far for inspiration when it came to playing his latest cold-blooded character. The actor explained that he modeled his serial killer role in M. Night Shyamalan‘s Trap after certain “people in our business” as he revealed how he and the director made audiences empathize with the character.
“Night being Night, he wants to give the audience a new experience,” Hartnett told Entertainment Weekly. ‘He’s been doing this his entire career. He’ll take a ghost story and tell it from the point of view of the ghost. He’ll take an alien invasion story and not really show the aliens. So this one is like a throwback thriller in a contained space from the perspective of the antagonist. It’s like Die Hard from Hans Gruber’s perspective.”
Trap follows Cooper (Hartnett), a father taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a massive concert, where police have set up a sting operation to take down The Butcher, the name coined for Cooper’s homicidal activities.
“There are a lot of CEOs, politicians, people in our business… a lot of people who are at the top,” Hartnett said of his inspiration. “They don’t mind stepping over people or doing horrible things to get where they’re going, and not having any empathy is a pretty big sign of being a psychopath. Whether or not you’re murdering people, I’ve met people like this, you know what I mean? So it was easy to take it all a step further, make it a little bolder, and make his cover so intense.”
Shyamalan explained that because he was making the movie “from the killer’s point of view,” he wanted to be “very careful.”
“What is he feeling or not feeling?” said Shyamalan. “He’s an interesting character to be with because he’s coming alive when things get scary. He gets more playful when things are getting tighter. But with the close-ups, you show him starting to panic. As it goes, our close-ups get tighter and tighter, and it starts to become a nightmare.”
I mean…that doesn’t sound like a farfetched personality type to base a psychopath on, lol. This American Life had an episode years ago that examined what makes a psychopath and turns out, some CEO-type people meet the requirements. I also remember a study from a few years ago that concluded that after you hit a certain level of extreme wealth, it does change the way you think and view the world. I suppose it’s an interesting premise, though, to examine a serial killer manhunt from the killer’s POV.
A few weekends ago, Mr. Rosie and I very randomly ended up rewatching Tropic Thunder. Josh’s decision to model his serial killer character after a CEO reminds me of Tom Cruise’s portrayal of unhinged Hollywood studio executive Les Grossman. In that case, it was for comedy, but it didn’t make the character come across any less sociopathic. There was also another big movie that came out earlier this year, which I won’t name so as not to spoil it, but IYKYK, and it featured a psycho studio exec, too. I haven’t seen Trap yet (we finally saw Twisters this weekend!), but it’s on my list. I’m here for the Hartnettaissance and want to do my part.
Photos credit: Imago-Images/Emmefoto/Frederic Kern/Avalon, Acero/Alter Photos/Avalon