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| The Last time you saw Josh Hartnett, he was dealing home-made speed in plastic biro casings to school kids and body-snatching aliens in The Faculty, As you do. "We got a little on our noses," he shrugs. "But we were actually snorting Vitamin C tablets. So it was pretty healthy for us." It's too early on a Sunday morning. Josh stares blearily at the cheese omelette he's ordered from the greasy cafe opposite his temporary London flat and asks if he's making any sense. He's in town to shoot Never Better, a comedy about hairdressers written by the Full Monty team. Josh plays Alan Rickman's morgue beautician's son, lopes around in a green parka and stretches his jowls around a very chewy Yorkshire accent. Before that, you'll see Josh on more familiar ground as strutting, skinny-legged 70s sex god Trip Fontaine, leading fellow cover Kirsten Dunst astray in The Virgin Suicides. The film's a dark suburban weirdfest that makes American Beauty look normal. It's the directorial debut of Sofia Coppola, daughter of movie legend Francis Ford and girlfriend of all round genius Spike Jonze. Throw in the fact that Air crafted the spooky soundtrack and you've got a package with "hip" written on every reel. Sofia recently described Josh as "born to be a movie star." Thankfully, he doesn't behave like one. He goes Dutch on breakfast dates. He wears a slightly dorky knitted fishing hat. And ever since he saw a young actor in Cannes with 30 suitcases for a seven day trip, Josh never travels with anything more than a backpack. When two French girls interrupt us to ask for his autograph he gazes at them with as much apparent awe and wonders as they do him. (Actually, Josh has a thing for French femmes, but more of that later). Plus he answers his own doorbell. And telephone. Josh Hartnett was born in 1978 in Minnesota. He describes his childhood self as 2the dirty little rugrat who runs around doing what he damn well pleases". Ironically, for a guy who's been immortalised on film as the ultimate high school dude, he puts no energy into being popular. "I had this mysterious air in high school. I think it had to do with the fact that I wore hats," he laughs, ramming a forkful of yellow omelette into his mouth. Josh would probably never have considered acting had a knee injury not stopped him playing sport. A keen dramarama auntie persuaded him to try out for a local production of Tom Sawyer. "I thought 'I can't do that, theatre people are geeks.'" But after landing the part of Huck Finn, he found he could act. And that he enjoyed it. After two and a half years of local stage work, he landed the son's role in Fitz, the US remake of Cracker. To his credit, Josh thinks the Brit original was better, "although the son was a little more involved in the American series. I got tied up and electrocuted in the second episode." The role that really made a difference was Halloween H20, scripted by Scream and Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson. After making an impression in this smart horror flick, Josh starred in an eye-catching Tommy Hilfiger ad (directed by Williamson) and then as über dude Zeke in The Faculty (written by ... guess). Since then he has shot five movies back-to-back: The Virgin Suicides, Town and Country, a family epic in which he plays the son of old timers Warren Beatty and Dianne Keaton; O, a modern remix of Othello set in an American high school; Here on Earth, "a sweet little love story about two guys fighting over a girl". The girl being fawn-like sexbomb-to-be is LeeLee Sobieski. "She's great. Fantastic. Beautiful. Very cool. I like her a lot. I love her." Josh continues in this vein, gushing about LeeLee's contribution to Eyes Wide Shut. "She lights up that movie. She's amazing!" I think we can assume he likes her. Which brings us to Never Better (where he stars opposite She's All That petitely minxy Rachel Leigh Cook), a film shot in glamorous Keighley, Yorkshire, and Shoreditch Town Hall, east London. Josh has been working six-day weeks for "I can't remember how long. It hasn't exactly been the most hedonistic time," he grumps. But he has found time to check out a footie game or three, Brit-style. "I love it, but I'd never been to a professional game, because we don't really have it in the States. I went to an Arsenal game. There's one guy, the centre for Arsenal, a French guy - he's great, very cool." There have also been evenings spent researching the great British pub: "Oh yeah, I like pubs. I like bars that aren't so disco-ey, where people wear other colours besides black." He's even flirted with the green fairy in a west London speakeasy: "I had absinthe in some Cuban, er, Jamaican ... er, Caribbean club, in Notting Hill. I pretty much believed every single thought I had that night. I've really got a handle on life now!" As an accompaniment to his enthusiastic alcohol consumption, Josh has even learned to cuss like a regular dirty-mouthed limey. "I do find myself calling people wan*ers," he grins. In fact, the only thing that's been missing from an otherwise thoroughly groovy Cool Brit sojourn, baby, is a spot of under-duvet action. Well, Sky guesses this from the way Josh goes on a little too fervently about the calibre of late night telly ("Have you seen Naked Elvis? It's ridiculous! THis guy dresses as Elvis strips down to nothing..."), and how many zillion times he's listened to his Gomez album. Of course, there've been moments: "I've come on to a couple of British girls and a couple have come on to me. British girls are beautiful. But they don't really give it away if they like you. I've met a lot of Australians here. Whoah! They just grab hold of you. But what I really love is French girls. Doesn't matter what they look like, it's the accent..." Three days later, Josh is ambling around the set in Shoreditch wearing a nerdy parka. It's getting to the end of the movie shoot, when everyone's gone all huggy and tactile. Natasha Richardson, who plays Josh's lesbian mum - done up blonde and short-skirted - is fussing over Josh like he's some pampered pet, popping chewing gum into his mouth. Rachel Leigh Cook, whose hair's been cropped pixie shot, is bear-huggin anything that moves, occasionally stopping to give Josh an absent-minded neck massage. Josh himself is in excellent spirits having spent the last few days "drinking and raising hell". He must have been, because every time there a lull in the action he lies down with a magazine over his face. "That vulnerable, likeable quality is very hard to find," says Never Better producer Ruth Jackson, looking on. "It's star quality and he's got it. He only has to walk on set and move his eyes around." Josh is woken from his nap to shoot one of his final scenes. His thoughts immediately drift to across the Channel: "I'd like to take a train to Paris right now and eat some lunch." He stopped of in Paris after Cannes, mooched about, quaffed Kronenbourg and, naturally, had some luck with the ladies: "It's hard not to. There are so many beautiful women there." And somehow the conversation wends its way around to LeeLee Sobieski again. Does he have a crush on her? "Oh yeah, definitely. She's wonderful isn't she? She's very sweet." Pause. Grin. "But I've got a crush on half the free world." |
| Sky April 2000 |