Hartnett's career started, as most actors' careers do, well before arriving in Hollywood. He was in junior high and high school play productions in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he grew up after being born in San Francisco. By the time he graduated from high school in 1996, he had opted out of football in favor of stage productions at the Youth Performance Company in Minneapolis. He took his first job at a Mr. Movies in St. Paul before heading off to the State University of New York (SUNY) in Purchase, New York.
In 1997, Hartnett was done with school and landed his first professional acting role as the character Michael Fitzgerald in the short-lived U.S. television series Cracker. His first feature film followed on the heels of some regional theater and television commercial work, when he played the son of Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Halloween: H20, released in August of 1998.
By 2002, after he had been chosen one of Teen People’s 25 Hottest Stars under 25, one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People, and Bliss Magazine’s 3rd sexiest male -- Hartnett had appeared in a number of moderately successful films. He had been in The Faculty, The Virgin Suicides, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, and 40 Days and 40 Nights, several of which were predicted to be his big break.
As Hartnett continued making good money, living the healthy vegetarian lifestyle and climbing the ladder of success in the film business, he moved himself and his high-school sweetheart Ellen Fenster into a 2.5 million dollar mansion in Minneapolis.
By 2004, Hartnett had started eating meat again, was estranged from Fenster, and was still waiting for his big breakthrough. 2003's Hollywood Homicide, with Harrison Ford, was expected to be a monster hit and his entrée to the A-list, but it bombed. After Wicker Park, Mozart and the Whale, Sin City, and Black Dahlia in 2004 and 2005 still failed to push him over the brink, Hartnett’s career seemed to have settled into a supporting-part groove. But apparently neither he nor his handlers would accept that as a final verdict on his career. Lucky for them, the studios still believed in him, too.
Once again, a highly-hyped 2006 feature with another longtime box office heavyweight Bruce Willis, was supposed to be the vehicle that would get Hartnett over the top. Unfortunately, Lucky Number Slevin bombed, too. As of this writing, the not-quite-so-young-anymore actor is banking on the role of a vampire hunter in the upcoming 30 Days of Night to be the role that finally puts him among the brightest stars in the Hollywood constellation. It is yet another good role in a big-budget film, which shows that the movie moguls have still not given up on Hartnett.
However, with fame so fleeting and fans so fickle, he won’t get that many more chances to cash in on his cachet. It really does appear that 2006 or 2007 will be the make-or-break year for Josh Hartnett, who has yet to live up to the Hollywood hype, much less his own potential.
YUDDY
