Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett (born Joshua Daniel Hartnett, July 21, 1978) is an American actor who became one of Hollywood’s most prominent young leading men of the early 2000s before deliberately stepping back from the spotlight and later re-emerging as a respected character actor.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Hartnett began in youth theatre, briefly studied at SUNY Purchase and moved to Los Angeles at nineteen. After the television series Cracker (1997–1998) he broke through as a teen idol in Halloween H20 and The Faculty (1998), Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999) and the war epics Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down (both 2001). He went on to headline 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Hollywood Homicide (2003), Wicker Park (2004), Sin City (2005), Lucky Number Slevin and The Black Dahlia (2006) and 30 Days of Night (2007).

At the height of his fame Hartnett turned down several blockbuster franchises and took an extended break, later reflecting that “trying to stay at the top is a shortcut to unhappiness.” He returned to prominence as Ethan Chandler in Showtime’s gothic drama Penny Dreadful (2014–2016), and has since built an acclaimed late-career run: the Black Mirror episode “Beyond the Sea” (2023), Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) as Ernest Lawrence, a chilling turn in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap (2024), a role in The Bear (2024–2025) and the action thriller Fight or Flight (2025).

In 2025 Hartnett was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, shooting an untitled Netflix series alongside Newfoundland actor Willow Kean, where he made headlines after a car accident. He has been with the British actress Tamsin Egerton since 2012; the couple married in 2021, have four children and live in Hampshire, England. Upcoming projects include the film Verity and the miniseries Below.

Across nearly three decades on screen he has moved from teen stardom through big-budget action spectacle to prestige film and television, and his decision to repeatedly step away from the industry on his own terms has made his unconventional career almost as widely discussed as the roles themselves.