Josh Hartnett quit Hollywood in his 20s

Josh Hartnett rushed to hospital with injuries after SUV crashes into police car

Pearl Harbour actor Josh Hartnett was taken to hospital with injuries after the SUV he was travelling in collided

Actor Josh Hartnett has been hospitalised after the SUV he was travelling in collided with a police vehicle in Newfoundland.

The incident happened shortly after 1am on Thursday, 25 September, at the junction of New Cove Road and Elizabeth Avenue in St John’s. CBC News reported the 47-year-old was a passenger at the time of the crash.

Police confirmed the SUV, driven by a 59-year-old man whose identity has not been released, was struck by a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary patrol car. The force later said: “As a precaution, one of our officers was also transported to hospital.”

Hartnett, his driver, and the officer involved were all assessed for minor injuries. Both vehicles sustained heavy damage. Investigators have appealed for witnesses and urged anyone with video footage to contact them.

At the time of the accident, Hartnett was returning from the set of a Netflix production currently filming in Newfoundland. The drama, referred to locally as the “untitled Netflix Newfoundland series,” features a large ensemble including Mackenzie Davis, Charlie Heaton, Natasha Henstridge, Ruby Stokes, Joshua Close and Rohan Campbell.

Hartnett, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, gained fame in the late 1990s with roles in The Faculty and Halloween H20. His career accelerated in 2001 when he starred in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor and Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.

By his mid-20s, he was one of Hollywood’s most recognisable young stars, appearing on magazine covers and leading major studio releases such as Lucky Number Slevin.

In later years, Hartnett stepped away from big-budget projects, focusing on independent film and television. He earned critical praise for Showtime’s gothic horror series Penny Dreadful and appeared in Guy Ritchie’s Wrath of Man.

Josh also stated he left Hollywood to try to preserve his “sanity”. In a candid chat with Julia Stiles, the popular actor spilled the beans, saying: “I never really lived in LA. Even when we were making ‘O’, I was in Minnesota, New York, nowhere, because I was living from set to set.”

Josh has starred in huge movies in his career including Black Hawk Down
Josh has starred in huge movies in his career including Black Hawk Down
“I drove my car down from Minnesota to shoot ‘O’ and then drove back after that. But the choice to step back from the industry had more to do with just plain sanity.”

The lure of fame and the risk of losing touch with his “community” were concerns that weighed heavily on Josh’s mind. He also admitted that the allure of fame didn’t bring him the “satisfaction” he craved.

Now settled in the UK with his wife Tamsin Egerton, Josh reflected: “I wanted to be myself amongst people that I knew, so I was able to revert back to my family and friends in Minnesota.”

He concluded with a reflection on his quest for fulfilment, admitting that after a certain amount of time chasing a goal, he grew to realise that achieving these things wasn’t going to give him back the satisfaction he was craving and had hoped for. Instead, he realised he needed something else to “fill that gap” and confessed that “community” is what fills this for him.

“Achievement is great in any walk of life,” he said. “It’s a reason to get up in the morning. But the thing that really holds you is your community. I felt that I was kind of rootless at that time, so I wanted to find that community.”

More recently, Josh played a key role in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer. The ongoing Netflix project marks another significant return to screen work for the actor, who has increasingly balanced mainstream roles with smaller productions.

Police enquiries into the Newfoundland crash remain active.