Early Life
Hartnett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and was raised by his father, Daniel Hartnett, a building manager, and his stepmother, Molly, an artist. He has three younger half-siblings. He is of mainly Irish ancestry and was raised Roman Catholic, attending Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Grade School, where he played Adam Apple in an eighth grade production of "Krazy Kamp". He later attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School before switching to South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from which he graduated in June 1996.
Hartnett was active in sports as a child, especially football, and did not entertain the thought of becoming a performer, until an injury left him unable to participate on the athletic playing field. A relative encouraged him to audition for a stage production of Tom Sawyer at Youth Performance Company, and to Hartnett's surprise, he won the part of Huckleberry Finn. Now in love with the stage, he went on to star in a slew of high school plays.
Hartnett got his first job at a local video store. He became a vegetarian at the age of 12 but ate meat during the shooting of The Black Dahlia for his role as a boxer.
After finishing high school, a move to New York to attend the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at SUNY Purchase did not go as well as he had hoped for, and a year later at age 19, Hartnett found himself in California. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he caught an improbable break, landing a part in the short-lived but acclaimed drama Cracker, on ABC. Although the series was cancelled after sixteen episodes, Hartnett had made a name for himself. He then began to focus on feature film work.
Read more about this topic: Josh Hartnett
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house. The ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” A letter scribbled on her office stationery that you carry around in your pocket because it smells of all the lilacs in Ohio.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“With liberty and pleasant weather, the simplest occupation, any unquestioned country mode of life which detains us in the open air, is alluring. The man who picks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable, he is even envied by his shop-worn neighbors. We are as happy as the birds when our Good Genius permits us to pursue any outdoor work, without a sense of dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)