How Josh Hartnett leaned into horror with ‘Verity,’ ‘Below’ and more for his ‘Hartnett-aissance’ comeback
Horror is having a moment — and so is the “Hartnett-aissance.”
At the height of his fame in the early aughts, Josh Hartnett vanished from Hollywood for several years. But now, the actor has made a major comeback with projects like M. Night Shyamalan’s serial killer flick “Trap” and domestic thriller “Verity,” and the Netflix’s new sea monster show, “Below.”
In his latest project, Netflix’s “Below,” Hartnett stars as a grizzled fisherman in a new sea monster series – while also donning an accent that makes him sound like a ludicrously handsome leprechaun.
One thing Hartnett’s projects all have in common? They’re horror-adjacent. The “Black Hawk Down” actor’s second act coincides with the genre having a moment in the sun.
Dating back to 1922’s “Nosferatu” as an iconic silent film, the genre has always been popular, but last year, horror had a mainstream breakthrough as “Sinners,” “Weapons” and “Frankenstein” got Oscar love – when the awards circuits usually turn their noses up at genre fare.
This year, horror further exploded with Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” dominating the box office, along with sleeper hits “Obsession” and “Backrooms.”
The latter two had such unexpected success, they practically redefined Hollywood, and made instant stars out of Inde Navarrette and young filmmakers Kane Parsons and Curry Barker.
Prolific horror creator Mike Flanagan recently told Page Six, “It makes me happy that horror has these cycles. It has these moments.”
The “Carrie” creator noted that “the genre is eternal,” but acknowledged, “We are in a particularly interesting moment right now, because I think we saw last year this incredible upswell in event horror.”
Hartnett hasn’t been exclusively tied to that genre as the “Virgin Suicides” actor was also in “The Bear” and “Oppenheimer” in 2025.
But the majority of his “Hartnett-aissance” has occupied the spooky space, starting with his underrated role as a gunslinger werewolf in the Victorian era horror series “Penny Dreadful” – which aired from 2014 to 2016, at the cusp of his resurgence.
Initially rising to fame in the late ’90s and early 2000s with movies like “Pearl Harbor” and “40 Days and 40 Nights,” Hartnett stepped back from the spotlight shortly after his rise. He did a few horror roles early in his career, like the 2007 vampire movie “30 Days of Night,” but he mostly played heartthrob or heroic characters.
He even rejected the role of Superman – twice.
He told the Guardian in July 2024 that his first round of stardom was a “weird time” because “people’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy … People showed up at my house.”
That same year, the “Faculty” actor told Interview magazine, “The choice to step back from the industry had more to do with just plain sanity.”
Hartnett noted, “On top of that, I felt like the celebrity culture was really vacuous…I wasn’t interested in any of that.”
During an Oct. 2 interview on NPR, Hartnett recalled that at the height of his fame, “I was on the cover of a lot of magazines, and I had a lot of paparazzi chasing me and was just sort of kind of thrown into the center of that world.”
He noted, “I didn’t want to feel like I wasn’t in any control of my own life.”
At the time, the “Sin City” actor left Hollywood behind for his native Minnesota, seeking “a much less Hollywood existence,” he explained.
Since 2012, he’s been linked with “Camelot” actress Tamsin Egerton, 37. The couple quietly married in 2021 and live in England with their 4 kids.
“I needed to step away from the limelight,” he said. “I hadn’t defined myself yet…there were lots of people that were kind of putting their definition of me out there into the world, and that was affecting my own idea of who I am.”
Hartnett added that he never stopped working, he just did projects that were under the radar.
It’s only been in recent years that he’s returned to more high-profile work, like “Trap” and “Verity,” and now “Below.”
Based on a Colleen Hoover novel, “Verity” isn’t technically horror, but it circles that genre, as a thriller full of unease, tension, and dastardly behavior from Hartnett and co-stars Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson.
“It’s funny, it’s never the horror element that really draws me to these projects,” he told Men’s Health in a story published Oct. 7.
“It’s always that I think horror is a really great genre for directors to experiment in,” he said, noting, “It feels like you can get away with more.”
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