Josh Hartnett won't allow his life to be "swallowed up" by his career.
Josh Hartnett became a heartthrob in the 90s
The 46-year-old actor consciously stepped back from Hollywood in order to focus on his family life, and Josh doesn't have any regrets about his decision.
The 'Pearl Harbor' star - who is married to actress Tamsin Egerton - told the Observer newspaper: "I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work. 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."
Josh became a heartthrob in the late 90s. However, he subsequently decided to focus his efforts on independent projects.
Josh said: "Some of those films were successful. Some of them were failures. But I was always swinging for something that was outside what people expected from me."
Earlier this year, Josh admitted that he never intended to become a "heartthrob".
The actor told Variety: "It was never my intention to be a heartthrob."
Josh "really wanted to be a serious actor" and so he pushed back against his sex symbol status.
The movie star explained: "I didn’t have the presence of mind to do that because I was so young. It had an effect on me, in which I had to fight against it.
"I really wanted to be a serious actor.
"What I didn’t understand is that I was in an amazing position, working with terrific directors on terrific projects."
Josh actually made a concerted effort to "rectify" his public perception.
He said: "To me, the world had seen me as a thing that I didn’t feel like inside. I wanted to rectify that."
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