Do you think he would...
(a) Go and get it?
(b) Simply pretend that the (undressed) woman didn’t exist? Or,
(c) Ask the woman to put her clothes back on?
Don’t look now but it did happen to Josh in London and he did none of the above.
"What did I tell the woman? I smiled and said, ‘Forget it!’ Just that."
Josh made that "confession" to a dozen entertainment journalists from around the world during a free-wheeling round-table interview several weeks ago at, you guessed it, a suite-turned-function-room at the posh Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. The occasion was the press junket for Columbia Pictures’ Hollywood Homicide (currently showing in Metro Manila) in which he co-stars with Harrison Ford. In the action-comedy directed by Ron Shelton (the 1988 Kevin Costner starrer Bull Durham, the 1989 Paul Newman starrer Blaze and the 1994 Tommy Lee Jones starrer Cobb, etc.), Josh plays a detective, just like Ford, who seems to be more interested in his side jobs as yoga teacher and aspiring actor (while Ford moonlights as a real-estate broker) than in the high-profile gangland-style murder of a rap group they’re assigned to investigate.
"It wasn’t the appropriate place to do it," Josh added, referring to the unbridled woman’s actuation and not to the possibility of his, well, succumbing to the temptation. "I told her, ‘Nice to meet you!’ and politely proceeded on my way."
The subject came up when somebody – was she the pretty journalist from Spain? – asked Josh how he felt about being a sex symbol, with a "smorgasbord of women" at his disposal, ready, willing and able to open up great possibilities for him. You know...
"How do I feel being considered a sex symbol? I don’t give it much thought, really. But, yes, it’s flattering. You know, there are a lot of guys around who are ‘sex symbols’ and heartthrobs. But I don’t let that ‘tag’ put any pressure on me."
So how else would he deal with over-aggressive women?
"I try to be nice to them."
Asked what sets him apart from other "sex symbols" or what he thinks women find sexy in him, Josh said, "I think more than anything physical, it’s my drive to explore things, my desire to experience the world. Women find that sexy, don’t they?"
Sitting there at the round table, being grilled by the journalists, Josh looked like a schoolboy taking an oral exam. He was wearing denims, with a body-hugging T-shirt tucked into it. He carried a backpack and he wore rubber shoes. He seemed ready to embark on a cross-country adventure, hitchhiking along the way, except that he had to spend the whole afternoon facing five more round tables, wrestling with questions he didn’t mind veering toward the personal.
Did he always want to be an actor? Guess again.
He was born Joshua Daniel Hartnett in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 21, 1978, the eldest among four children brought up by their father (a commercial property manager) and their stepmother (an artist). Their parents divorced when Josh was a kid.
"In high school," he recalled, "I played football. I dreamed of pursuing a professional career in sports."
Unfortunately, when he was 15, Josh broke his knee and was dropped from the football team. He found himself with plenty of time to spare. An aunt encouraged him to audition for the play Tom Sawyer at the Minneapolis Youth Performance Company so he would stop being idle and being bored. He landed the lead role as Huck Finn, a character Josh said he strongly identified with.
"Yes, that’s the person I’ve always wanted to be, somebody like Huck Finn. Somebody who’s not always accepted by society but who finds his own ideals and isn’t afraid to go out on a limb."
There’s a rebel streak in him.
"I didn’t start being an actor until I was l6. I started doing theater when I was about l8. I went to New York to study acting. I also wanted to be a painter. I wanted to do both, acting and painting, but I ended up more of an actor than a painter." While a student at Purchase College State University of New York’s acting conservatory in 1996, Josh was kicked out due to his, yes, "rebel streak."
"I objected to the school’s practice of admitting more students than it would ultimately graduate and felt that the program’s highly competitive structure stifled students’ creativity. Instead of writing an essay for one of my liberal arts classes, I decided to take the opportunity to speak my mind. I wrote a letter to the dean and to my teachers about the policy. They didn’t appreciate it, so they asked me to leave. I stayed in that school for only five months."
Hollywood beckoned. Josh moved to Los Angeles and, soon, opportunities were opening up to him. Two weeks after his arrival, he got a starring role on the 1997 TV drama Cracker (as the son of a crime-fighting psychologist). The show got low ratings but Josh got good notices. Before long, he landed parts in Halloween: H2O (1998), The Faculty (1998), Hero on Earth (2000) and The Virgin Suicides (2000). It was his role in Pearl Harbor (2001), as the pilot-friend of Ben Affleck, that catapulted Josh to the A-list. Then came 40 Days and 40 Nights and other films.
And then came Hollywood Homicide.
How is Hollywood Homicide compared to his previous films?
"It something I’ve never done before. It’s a different kind of character, a little more absurd than the ones that I’ve done."
Is he more comfortable doing this type of roles?
"Well, this is something that I’ve been wanting to do. Doing comedy is such a welcome break after doing drama."
Did he have to take up yoga courses as part of his preparation for Hollywood Homicide?
"Oh, yes, I did. I did about seven months yoga training. Everyday. I had a private instructor. I wanted to go on with my yoga lessons even after shooting of Hollywood Homicide ended but then I had to go on to other movie projects. I became too busy for it. But I try to practise yoga every now and then. It has a positive effect on me."
How was it working with Harrison Ford?
"Oh, great! Doing Hollywood Homicide was a great experience. I grew up watching his movies. He’s my idol. It was a little bit intimidating at first but eventually we got along very well."
Did he get pointers from Ford as far as acting and, maybe, dealing with the media were concerned?
"I did. Harrison is kind of a man of few words. I learned more just by watching him. What he goes through all the time is a task; he doesn’t want to compromise. He does what he believes is the right thing for him to do."
How does he keep fit?
"I don’t really work out. I do a bit of running every now and then and, as I’ve said, a little bit of yoga."
According to a magazine story, Josh hasn’t quite grown accustomed to the Hollywood lifestyle, so he continues to live in Minneapolis when he’s not on location.
"I feel more comfortable there. I come to Hollywood to work and then I go back to Minneapolis where I can be myself. I don’t really enjoy living in Los Angeles. The weather is fine, all right, and the people are beautiful, but there’s some kind of a segregation here. You’re either an outsider looking in or an insider stuck inside this expensive ball of wax."
Although he was reported to have dated a few starlets when he was new in Tinseltown, Josh eventually got back together with his hometown girlfriend, Ellen Fenster, also from Minneapolis, his campus sweetheart back at the South High School. Another magazine story reported that the sweethearts have been busy refurbishing Josh’s $2.4-million Victorian "fixer-upper" they bought early this year in an upscale suburb of Minneapolis.
After Hollywood Homicide, what?
"I hope to do more movies," said Josh, "and more paintings."
He has politely turned down an offer to be the new Superman. Asked why, Josh said, "It wasn’t what I wanted to do. There’s really no specific reason. I like the people involved in it. I just didn’t feel that it was the right thing for me to do. I asked myself, ‘Am I going to feel fulfilled doing this?’ The answer was no. Probably not. I just felt that putting on the tights just didn’t make sense."
Instead, he opted to do a romance-mystery called Obsessed, a remake of the 1996 French film L’Appartement.
"I’m more of an art-house fan than a blockbuster guy," said Josh whose favorite films include Buena Vista Social Club, Basquiat and anything by Pedro Almodovar or Terry Gilliam.
And what kind of music does he prefer?
"Rap, among others. I really like the music of LL Cool J. But for the most part, I’m a rock-jazz kind of guy."
After the 30-minute interview, Josh looked at each one of the dozen journalists in the eye and smiled, "See you around, guys!"
As he walked out of the room, the backpack dribbling behind him, he looked less like a sex symbol and a Hollywood A-lister than a student rushing to school for his final exams. I wondered how he would react if, somewhere at the Four Seasons lobby, a pretty woman would block his path, take off her clothes and ask him to, yeah, "Come and get it!"
(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph)