You can be a star without social media. Just ask Josh Hartnett.

Yahoo

12-05-2025

Josh Hartnett has been promoting his new movie, Fight or Flight, a lot on social media — just not on his own account.
One 4-second TikTok from the film's official page in which he announces that tickets are on sale has a whopping 7.7 million views, but you won't catch him tapping into his newfound viral fame anytime soon.
'I'm more focused on the physical aspects of my life than the virtual,' Hartnett told Yahoo Entertainment. 'I have enough stuff going on in my day-to-day life that I couldn't possibly take an hour or two a day to do social media stuff. I just don't have the time.'
While promoting Fight or Flight, his publicist sent him a post that called him 'the reclusive Josh Hartnett.'
'And I was like, 'What?! No! I'm the opposite of that!'' he said. 'I'm engaged entirely in my day-to-day existence, and I feel like sometimes people ... retreat into social media as opposed to spending time with other people. I just really like people! I just like being around them. And for me, it seems like the best way to do that is to cut myself out of that.'
Hartnett is still happy to shoot a few videos when promoting a project though.
'I get to learn the new trends, and so I'm educated. Now I know all my Gen Z slang,' he said.
Some celebrities have spoken out about the pressure to maintain social media accounts to further their careers. In February, Maya Hawke said on a podcast that producers sometimes make casting decisions based on actors' follower counts. In March, Scarlett Johansson told InStyle she was asked to join Instagram to promote Jurassic World: Rebirth but didn't because she didn't think it would allow her to 'stay true to who I am.'
Hartnett's lack of a social media presence hasn't interfered with his resurgence.
He starred in Trap in 2024, stole scenes in Oppenheimer in 2023 and will lead the highly anticipated film adaptation of the novel Verity in 2026. Fans and media outlets have declared a 'Hartnett-aissance.'
'I appreciate the fact that people like the work that I'm doing right now — that people are saying that — because it seems like that's obviously a very complimentary, flattering thing! I don't know,' he said. 'For me, I'm just doing the thing that I've always been doing, which is trying to make the most interesting films with the most interesting characters that I can find.'
Hartnett said he's been lucky to work with directors with reach that allows films to be seen 'on a larger level recently.' That, in turn, gave him the ability to work with Fight or Flight director James Madigan on his debut feature film and give it a bit of a boost.
'I've been doing this for almost 30 years, and the fact that I'm still able to make, I think, unique films and experiment with unique characters — I feel like I'm just incredibly blessed, you know?' he said. 'Like … I love making films.'
In the early 2000s, Hartnett made a name for himself starring in war movies like Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor.
He was excited to take his action-scene prowess up a notch with Fight or Flight. He plays a mercenary tasked with locating a high-value asset on a flight, only to be attacked by a series of assassins hell-bent on killing him. He did all of his own stunts.
'I got to do something that I've not been able to do in a long, long time — if ever — and stretch in a way that I haven't been able to stretch in a long time,' he said. 'I couldn't be happier.'
is now in theaters.