| Empire |
| Fly Boy Josh Hartnett on Ben, bombs and buffing up… Josh Hartnett describes how he landed the pivotal role of Danny Walker, in what could be the biggest movie of the century so far, as if it were roughly as taxing a process as acquiring a dog license. "They weren't giving out the script," he says casually, "but for some reason they sent me one. I was kinda flattered by that. I went in, talked to Jerry and Michael and they asked me if I wanted to screen test. I did, and I didn't expect a to hear anything back. But they gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to do it. I said yes." Badda-bing, badda-boom However, Hartnett (The Virgin Suicides, Blow Dry) was anything but blasé when he first stepped onto the set of Michael Bay's colossal World War 2 epic. "Phewww," he whistles. "I knew it was going to be a big deal, but we took over the whole of Pearl Harbour, the entire base…The ships, the planes - they had old B52s and P40s and B2 Bombers and all this huge fuckin` stuff all over the place, the boats and the cars and all this period stuff. As soon as I walked on the set it was like being back in 1941. It was so impressive. And the more we got into it, the more impressive it became. On the 20th day of shooting, they blew up five or six battleships all at once. Something like 500 explosions went off in three minutes. That was for one shot in the movie. Just the scale, the size of the whole thing was incredible." Before Ben Affleck was cast as Rafe McCawley, Danny's best buddy and rival-in-love for Kate Beckinsdale`s nurse Evelyn Johnson, Hartnett was being groomed for Affleck`s part. "I'm glad it worked out the way it did." He says, "because I ended up playing a role I felt more dearly towards. Danny is more innocent than Rafe, he's a lot more.." he searches for a word. "…Tormented - but not overly so. He's got a complex background. His dad's an alcoholic, he's got a really close friend who's got problems of his own - Rafe can't really read, he's dyslexic. Danny's damaged goods, you know? He has troubles." The 22 year old actor reveals what drew him to the script were both a refreshing innocence and a pervasive aura of "old Hollywood." According to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, he and Bay were drawn to Hartnett for the same reasons. "Josh has got something that's a little bit Montgomery Clift, a little bit Gary Cooper." He says. Clift, one of the great tragic figures of Hollywood's golden age, specialised in soulful, haunted characters, Perhaps his most famous role was as the doomed Private Prewitt in From Here To Eternity, a film to which Pearl Harbour is already attracting comparisons. "Jerry really said that?" Hartnett asks, visibly chuffed. "That's so flattering. Montgomery Clift was great, but, you know I'm just me." The complex relationship between the two lead males appears to have spilled over into real life. "I got on with Ben really well," he says. " but his reputation preceded him, for me at least, was that he was a real dick. So many people told me he was an arrogant bastard. When I met him he totally threw me for a loop. He's the most down-home, together guy. Really, really intelligent and very, very funny, just fun to be around." Even so, a bit of on-screen rivalry snuck into their off-screen relationship. "We're both kind of competitive," admits Hartnett. "When we showed up to start working out at the beginning of the movie, I was skinny and he was a little plump. We both worked our asses off to get into shape and we'd see each other in the gym and be glancing over, checking out each other's pecs and…No I'm kidding. But we had the same trainer and he played us off each other. He'd say "Josh is doing real well. You gotta catch up, Ben, or you're gonna look like a real slob on the set." Of course, the next day, he'd be saying the same thing to me." |
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