Josh Hartnett Plays 1940's Tough Guy

Tall, dark and handsome Josh Hartnett visited the 1940's before in the epic Pearl Harbor. More recently, he met sultry Scarlett Johansson while making the true life, film noir crime thriller The Black Dahlia and sparks flew. Even their director Brian De Palma says he had no idea anything was going on between his lead actors until Scarlett wrapped her part then returned to Bulgaria, where most of the film was shot, to watch Josh work. We're sure that the sexual tension between their characters in the film contributed something to the hook up but neither actor is telling.

We chatted with the young stars at the famous Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A. recently. This posh, classic palace that takes up almost a city block, was action central for love trysts and big business and crime pow wows back in the 1940's when a wanna-be starlet named Elizabeth Short, known as The Black Dahlia, made her last phone call from there. Soon after, she was found tortured and dismembered lying in a field. We were a little spooked as we sat down with the stars in a room that probably has as much interesting history as the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

If the setting was beautiful but disturbing, you wouldn't know by Josh's attitude. He was bouncy, friendly and casual in jeans and black sweater over purple tee as he told us about playing an obsessed cop trying to solve an infamous murder, his intense training for a boxing scene in the film, feelings about his character and that, when he was only 23 and first signed to the role [Josh is 28 now], he felt he was too young to play the guy. The actor chats about Film Noir in general, damage from the constant smoking required for his character, working with Scarlett and how he got involved in the unusual project.

TeenHollywood: Okay we wanna know. What was it like to kiss both Hilary Swank and Scarlett Johansson?

Josh: They're both very good kissers. It was part of a day's work. Tough day at the office [big grin].

TeenHollywood: Okay, we'll get serious. Why were these dark [film Noir] gritty detective films so popular back in the 1940's and '50's?

Josh: I think, part of what was intriguing about the films, back in the 40's and 50's is [they were] so opposite to the way people were viewing the nuclear family back then. I also think that the post-war era, where people came home and moved to the suburbs and had their families living in seclusion from these grittier details of life, made them lust for it a little bit, and it turned Hollywood on its head, in a way. Noir was the opposite of what Hollywood had grown to expect and market. People were lusting for that darker side of life when they were living in such seeming isolation from that darkness.

TeenHollywood: These films also usually had a guy trying to save a girl.

Josh: Yeah but in this particular instance, I don't understand who is the damsel in distress. I'm ultimately the one who's saved, in the end, by Kay [Scarlett Johansson's character]. I kill the other one [Hilary Swank's character whom his character Bucky has an affair with] , so I don't think I save her very well. [Laughs] Aaron [Eckhart] has a fascination with saving [women]. His character is very specifically trying to save all the women. I think that that is a similar characterization to Bud White in L.A. Confidential, which is something that I think Ellroy [novelist for both "L.A. Confidential" and "The Black Dahlia"] likes to revisit. I think that he finds it noble. But, that nobility is obviously what sets him off on his tragic trajectory.

TeenHollywood: But Bucky wants to save Kay as well, right?

Josh: When somebody harms someone that you care about, you want to harm them, I suppose. That's an initial reaction. He wants to protect her, but that's a naive understanding of the situation. Before this story takes place, he doesn't really understand the complexities of it. That's why he's the naive person, at the beginning of this script. But, I don't think that it's an inclination that's across the board, and I don't think it's the central focus of the piece.

TeenHollywood: There is a lot of obsession in this film. What do you think the difference between lust and love is?

Josh: I don't even know. Define love. I think that my definition of love has changed over the years, as I've grown a little bit older. Lust is nothing like any of those definitions, though. Lust is a simpler feeling. It's an immediate reaction. It's like a sense.

TeenHollywood: You and Scarlett play characters who are bonded but they circle each other kind of warily. How did the two of you work on those scenes?

Josh: Because the characters are so well defined in the book and because the scenario is so clear, it's almost like all we had to do as actors was develop a shorthand with each other. We just developed an understanding with each other so that we could move through the piece because I think that Ellroy has done most of the work for us -- all the backstory. We know how we're feeling about each of the other characters at any given moment because it's in the book. So, as actors, we didn't have to manipulate the situation the way that, sometimes, you do. We just had to act.

TeenHollywood: Doesn't your involvement with this film go way back?

Josh: Brian [De Palma] came onto the film about 2 ½ or 3 years after I initially got involved. It was a different director at the time they hired me. It was the same producers. I was hired to play Bucky when I was much too young to play Bucky. I was 23. But, I recognized how great the material was and wanted to stick with it. There was a gap there of two years, where nothing was happening. When Brian came on, he hired me, just right off the bat. 'Cause I was still attached, he signed on with me already attached, which was great.

TeenHollywood: How did those first meetings go?

Josh: I went and talked to him and he didn't seem to have any interest in talking about the character or anything. We just sat down and had a cup of coffee and looked at each other and said, 'This is going to be fun,' and told a couple jokes, and that was it. That's how our relationship is. [Laughs] Our relationship has stayed around that depth, and I love him for that. He knows what he wants, he casts well, and once he's cast the roles, he just left us to our own devices. It was fun. We just had a good time together.

TeenHollywood: Some of this film is very darkly funny. Is that intentional?

Josh: Yeah. Brian added elements of comedy. He has a devil may care attitude about filmmaking, which I love. He wants to make it entertaining. He wants to make it pulpy, in a way. He wants to make it operatic and fun. I appreciate that. There are certain films that you need to take with the utmost seriousness, if you're telling a true story, through and through. This film is fictionalized. It's based on Ellroy's book, which also has some of that humor. We added little humorous elements, all the time. We never wanted unintentional laughs. The hat thing [Josh puts on his hat in bed in the film] was just a goof that Brian left in.

TeenHollywood: You and Scarlett are in your 20's and your director is 66. Can you talk a little bit about the differences in generations?

Josh: Working with directors, because I feel this is such a director's medium, there are certain points of negotiation, but for the most part, it's going to be their movie, so you either get in line with them, or you end up disappointed. I have seen, I think, pretty much everything Brian's done, and I felt like his work made him the perfect person to adapt this book for the screen. It doesn't matter the age, really. Maybe because he's a little bit older, he had a better understanding of this era than a younger director might. There is certain dark, wry wit about the whole thing, and I thought his operatic filmic sense played right into the era and the grandness of the whole situation.

TeenHollywood: This is one of the biggest Hollywood scandals. Was there a sense of creepiness around any of this on the set?

Josh: We were in Bulgaria, so we didn't have a lot of connection to the Los Angeles of the era. There's a creepiness to any true story, in a way. Maybe creepiness isn't the right word, but a responsibility that you feel. On this particular film, it's a fictionalized account, so as Ellroy would say, we're just trying to honor Betty Short and her death, but it's not trying to figure anything out. It's not trying to decipher it for anybody. It's a story. We can't catch the killer, unless this guy that recently came forward, who says that he did it, is really the killer, but there have been 1,000 such people.

TeenHollywood: Aaron Eckhart really hits you hard in the boxing match between your characters. Did you put a lot of time into training for that?

Josh: I spent way too much time, really, boxing for this. I didn't need to, and I knew it was only going to be one scene in the film. But, Ellroy makes a direct correlation between the way that Bucky acts as a fighter and the way that he acts in his life. The way that he takes apart an opponent is very similar to the way he takes apart the case. So, for me, when I got into the ring, I felt I was starting to really understand the character.

TeenHollywood: Did you train constantly?

Josh: I spent seven months boxing, five days a week, four hours a day, like they were training me to actually have a fight. And then, I would run for an hour, every day. It was intense. My trainers were really into it. They were killing me. The first day of training, or maybe the first few days, they put me in the ring to try and spar, to just show me that it wasn't going to be a cake walk. I think I made it less than a round before I was just passing out. You start to hyper-ventilate and you don't know how to keep your cool and you don't know how to start to pick apart your opponent. You don't know how to defend yourself. By the end of it, I was going seven rounds with 30-second intervals for time off, which is equivalent in a normal bout of going a full 10-round fight, so I was tip-top.

TeenHollywood: Did you get any boxing advice from Hilary? She was the "Million Dollar" boxing Baby you know.

Josh: [Laughs] No. Apparently, somebody said somewhere that she challenged me to a fight [laughs], but I wouldn't take her up on it. She looked pretty good in Million Dollar Baby.

TeenHollywood: Was there any real physical contact during that fight scene with Aaron?

Josh: Oh, we ended up accidentally hitting each other a couple times. Aaron got me, at that point, twice and that was a pain in the a**. I wanted to get him back. But, we survived it.

TeenHollywood: Everybody in this movie is smoking constantly because it was big in that era. Do you normally smoke that much?

Josh: No. No, I don't. I was smoking two packs of Camel Straights a day, plus when I got off work, I would smoke another pack of Camel Lights. It actually made me quit smoking for a long time.

TeenHollywood: How did you get through all your training while you were smoking that much?

Josh: That was the hard part. I didn't smoke through all the training at all, and then, when I got to set and had to start smoking again, that just tore me apart, but I had to do it. You can see it in the movie. I look sallow. I look sick through a lot of the film because I was working 12 hours a day, going to the gym for as many hours as I can, and I actually started eating meat while I was there because the Bulgarian doctor didn't know what else to do with me. He said, 'You eat meat?' I said, 'No'. He said, 'Eat meat.'

TeenHollywood: You're a vegetarian, right?

Josh: Yeah. I literally couldn't walk anymore because I was so anemic

TeenHollywood: Was it hard to give up smoking after filming?

Josh: Oh, yeah. But, it was necessary. I could see myself getting older. I could feel myself getting older. It was immediate because it was so much smoke. But it hasn't stuck completely so I can't give any advice.

TeenHollywood: As an actor, can you identify with the idea of Bucky's obsession? And, is that something you have to be more wary of?

Josh: Yeah. There's a certain obsessive tendency in actors, as I think there is with anybody who has a job that has a finite amount of time. You have to complete it, and you have to complete it in a certain amount of time, so you ultimately think you're going to be relieved of this obsession at a certain point, and that justifies you really pouring yourself into it, heart and soul, much to the chagrin of anyone you know and love.

TeenHollywood: Are you still living in Minnesota, and is it still keeping you in your cocooned security, being so far away from Hollywood?

Josh: Well, I've never cocooned myself. I've always just tried to stay out of what I considered a trap, that I think takes out a lot of young actors. You live in a place where people focus on your work all the time and it defines you and, if things start to not go as well, you start to doubt yourself as a human being. I just saw that it was not going to be easy for me to separate my work from my person, if I didn't take a few steps away from Hollywood, so I never really lived here.

TeenHollywood: You don't have Hollywood friends?

Josh: Most of my friends aren't actors, or in the business. Most of them are artists of different types -- photographers, writers, painters, musicians, and some of them are filmmakers and actors. I live in New York and Minneapolis, and always have. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get sucked into some sort of rut, where I was going to become either a parody of myself, or get stuck doing the same type of roles all the time. So, I took a bunch of steps back, in order to reassess my situation and find different types of roles.

TeenHollywood: So, are you shooting anything right now?

Josh: Yeah, I'm doing a movie called 30 Days of Night. I'm shooting in Auckland, New Zealand.

TeenHollywood: Who else is in it with you?

Josh: Danny Houston, Ben Foster, this girl Melissa George, some other folks. It's a good one. And, I just finished this movie called Resurrecting the Champ with Sam Jackson and Alan Alda, and a bunch of other people.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.