Josh Hartnett reveals why he traded L.A. and New York for a quieter life in England

Two decades after the fact, Josh Harnett has opened up about his decision to leave Los Angeles at the peak of his fame.

“I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work,” the 46-year-old star of M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie “Trap” said in a Guardian interview published Sunday. “And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn’t want that for myself.”

Harnett’s journey in Hollywood began when he garnered attention playing notable roles in indie films such as “The Faculty” and “The Virgin Suicides” at the end of the 1990s. Then came lead roles in the 2001 movies “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor” and 2002’s “40 Days and 40 Nights.”

But he wasn’t fond of the fame that came with these high-profile roles — not to mention the hero-or-heartthrob jobs he was being offered — and soon after doing those big-budget movies he stepped away from the spotlight, moving back to his home state of Minnesota and severing ties with his agents. After about 18 months, he returned to the industry, declining big-budget roles and instead picking up work in smaller indie films.

The “Pearl Harbor” actor now lives in the United Kingdom on a marriage visa with his wife, British actor Tamsin Egerton, after going back and forth between the U.K. and New York for years. The two met while filming Roland Joffe’s movie “The Lovers” in 2011, started a relationship the next year and welcomed the first of their four children in 2015. Later they relocated to the British countryside, and in 2022, he revealed they secretly married in 2021.

Harnett says the humble village life gives him more time with his kids than his life in New York and Los Angeles ever did.

“People only want to talk about your career” in New York and L.A., he told the Guardian. But in the U.K., he said, “nobody cares.”

“I never would have expected it. And time passes quickly. With four children, you have so much to do. In a way, less is happening. But more of the important stuff is happening. My oldest daughter is 8½ now — that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”

In “Trap,” Hartnett stars as a devoted father who brings his daughter to a pop star’s concert — but director Shyamalan is known for his twist endings (think “The Sixth Sense” and “The Village”). And the trailer for the film reveals a twist for sure: Dad is actually a serial killer known as the Butcher.

“Trap” hits movie theaters in the U.S. on Friday.