| Galaxie |
| Mr. Shy Guy Josh Hartnett, one of Hollywood's fastest-rising young actors, hopes his next film will be a hit...but he hopes it won't be too big a hit. "Sometimes people get crazy with a film, like they did with Titanic," explains the shockingly handsome 22-year-old, who is best known for teen favorites like The Faculty and the arthouse fare, The Virgin Suicides. "But what I wonder is, if you star in a film that popular, can your life ever be the same again?" That's a question Leonardo DiCaprio must have pondered a hundred times after Titanic hit the screen. Come next month, after the release of the eagerly anticipated Pearl Harbor - in which the actor plays a wartime pilot - Hartnett may be asking himself the same thing. An epic love story set against the background of World War II, Pearl Harbor is one of the most ambitious productions in Hollywood history. It was filmed over most of last year on locations in Hawaii, mainland United States and in England, and features an all-star cast that includes Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kate Beckinsale and Jon Voight. Early previews of some of the film's key footage have already generated exciting comparisons not only with Titanic, but Saving Private Ryan as well, and fansites devoted to Hartnett and his dimpled good looks are springing up faster than you can say "next big thing". "Personally, I'll go and see Pearl Harbor just for the explosions," laughs Hartnett, who admits he thought long and hard before signing for the film and was initially wary of being in what was so obviously "a big, big movie". "I really want to be able to walk down the street and not be recognized," insists the reluctant star, who grew up in Minnesota and came to Hollywood after being thrown out of acting school. What changed Hartnett's mind, he says, were two things - Pearl Harbor's very persuasive director, Michael Bay(The Rock and Armageddon) and a script that Hartnett says he found more compelling than any he'd ever read before. "I play Danny Walker, a pilot from Tennessee, who's best friends with Ben Affleck's character," Hartnett explains. "Danny's had a screwed-up childhood and Ben's character is dyslexic and we kind of look out for each other, though Ben's character is the much more obviously heroic one." "I liked these characters so much and I really thought the script brought the period to life," Hartnett adds. "Before now, Pearl Harbor was just a name to me - something from a history book - but I ended up feeling so close to these characters and realising how close this bit of history is to us still. I mean, it's just a couple of generations back and many of the people who lived through these events are still around." As part of his preparation for the film, Hartnett met some of the survivors "The thing that got me when preparing for this role was when I had to talk to the real survivors of Pearl Harbor 'cause we learned an awful lot about what happened and it was intense stuff.") and read a lot of history books. He also went to the sort of military boot camp that has lately become a rite of passage for all actors involved in films about World War II. "It was five days that seemed like an eternity," says Hartnett, who is 6'3" tall and previously thought of himself as "in pretty good shape". "We'd have to do sit-ups and push-ups until we couldn't breathe and the guys who ran the place, the just didn't care. I mean, they singled out Ben for a lot of abuse because they knew who he was. They weren't going to go easy on him just because he was a big movie star." "I thought I was safe," Hartnett adds. "I was like, 'Pick on Ben!' but my hair was longer than everyone else's and nothing like the regulation crew cut. So anytime a different sergeant would arrive, he'd come right up to me and I'd be doing the sit-ups and push-ups again! It was a real challenge," Hartnett laughs, "but it definitely helped me bond with Ben - we became real buddies. Also, I think the camp allowed us to see what we're really made of." For all his preparations and research, however, Hartnett says nothing could have readied him for the first days of what became an arduous six-month shoot. At the heart of Peal Harbor's story is the fateful morning in December 1941 when the Japanese airforce mounted a surprise attack on U.S. armed forces in Hawaii. Bay's ambitious re-enactment of that event is sure to be one of the visual highlights of his own film and Hartnett says his own response when he arrived on the film's vast set in Hawaii was a simple "Wow!". "It was awesome," the actor says. "I walked onto the set and there were hundreds and hundreds of extras in period costumes and all these old planes and jeeps and ships. And there were hundreds of special effects people working on cranes that were tipping ships over on their sides to stimulate the attack. It felt as close to being there in 1941 as you could possibly be. It was just overwhelming." "It got that I would go to the set even on the days I wasn't shooting just to see what Michael Bay was doing. I realised that this was probably a one-in-a-lifetime experience and I didn't want to miss a thing." Looking back on the experience, Hartnett says he came away with huge respect for Bay, who apparently runs his sets a bit like the sergeants at the military boot camp. "He cares about his movies so much he loses a bit of perspective," the actor admits. "His work is law and he just pushes and pushes and pushes some more. But in the end, it was all about making the best movie possible." Hartnett also says the movie radically changed his perspective on a part of history he previously knew very little about and on the men and women who served in the armed forces. "Everything about making the movie has enhanced my respect for the military," he says. "I hadn't thought about it very deeply before. I actually started off not having any respect for anyone who waged war. Making the film made me realise how much this whole generation went through during World War II and made me feel very connected to them." "If the film works," Hartnett concludes, "I think that's what will happen to the audience, too. The film will be this huge, emotionally involving experience and at the heart of it will be the story of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. I think audiences will come out of the film looking at this important part of history in a very different way." Whether the audiences will also promote Josh Hartnett to full-fledged star status remains to be seen, but that's something the apparently shy actor is trying not to think about. "Success is nice because it makes it easier to do other films. I mean, I want to work. I just don't want people looking at me when I'm in the supermarket buying milk and my hair looks all funny." |