This is how Josh Hartnett got into the head of his serial killer

The silence of the lambs at a Taylor Swift concert: This is how director M. Night Shyamalan pitched his new thriller Trap: No Way Out two years ago. The premise is as simple as it is ingenious: a serial killer is at a concert with his daughter and feels safe in the crowd. But then he finds out that the entire building is surrounded by police. The hunter becomes the hunted.

Although it is clear from the start that the protagonist is not a good person, the film invites us to root for the killer as he tries to escape. But who do you cast in such a role? In Josh Hartnett, Shyamalan has found an unexpected and brilliant cast member. Only last year he turned out to be a scene-stealer in Oppenheimer. We met him for an interview on the occasion of the cinema release of Trap.

You can watch the trailer for Trap here:

Moviepilot: The Guardian recently published a profile about you in which the Joshonaissance is mentioned. How do you feel about that?

Josh Hartnett: Basically, my career has been going like this for a while. But for some reason, people are only interested in it now. I decided years ago that I only wanted to work with directors that I found really interesting. I wanted to make films that were different and play characters that were different from each other to surprise the audience. Thanks to Oppenheimer and a few Guy Ritchie films, more people are now noticing me in the cinema again. That is definitely flattering and I am very happy.

I thought Cash Truck was so good. Almost like a modern day Heat.

Thanks!

Which directors are still on your bucket list?

There are a few names I would like to work with. At the Oppenheimer awards tour I met Luca Guadagnino and Yorgos Lanthimos, whose work I find very impressive. I’ve also always wanted to do something with Wes Anderson. And David Fincher! He was on board for a film I played in a long time ago. But in the end it didn’t work out.

Which movie was that?

That was with Black Dahlia. David Fincher was originally set to direct the film, but he ultimately decided to do something else. Brian De Palma came on as a stand-in director. I would have loved to work with Fincher on the film, but it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe I can do that at some point.

I hope there is a possibility. Before we get to trap, another important question: what was the last concert you went to?

Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour. My kids are completely obsessed with her, so I took them to one of the concerts at Wembley Stadium.

How cool! I’m very fascinated by how she manages to turn these concerts into a safe space for so many people. Now Trap is coming and charging the concert space with a lot of suspense.

That’s exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to juxtapose these two completely different things. On the one hand, there is this extremely dark character, and on the other hand, the happy concert atmosphere. The exciting thing is: at first, Cooper seems normal, psychologically intact. The serial killer is hidden deep inside him. We get to know him as a cool dad who only gradually reveals his true core. As an actor, I had a lot of fun uncovering these cracks in the character. But it takes a lot of work to find all these levels in the game.

How did you do that? Was there anything specific that helped you prepare for the role?

Well, you can’t just meet a serial killer and ask him how he goes about his craft. So I read a lot of books about serial killers and psychology. I was particularly fascinated by how these people create a layer of fiction over their personalities and their lives that feels stable. But very quickly, it all falls apart when one thing gets out of balance.

What other insights into the mind of a serial killer were helpful to you in bringing Cooper to life?

I discovered that serial killers are basically like actors and that they somehow want to get caught too. It’s a dilemma: They are determined to do what they do. They want to be seen as intelligent and put themselves above the law. At the same time, they want to tell their story and are frustrated that they can’t. A constant conflict with their own narcissism. I wanted to combine these two sides in Cooper. But not just in the form of a dark character study. The film should be entertaining and fun above all else.

I giggled a lot, maybe too much.

No, no, that’s exactly how it should be.

The film has a few twists and turns. When reading the script, did you ever feel that this one twist might be too much of a good thing?

It was a big challenge to make it all convincing. It was clear to me from the start that if we wanted to pull this off, we would have to use a lot of humor. How do you get the audience on the side of a serial killer? Humor was our secret weapon. We tell you right at the beginning: “This is a bad person.” And then you take his side anyway.

I was also surprised at how much I rooted for him at the beginning.

That’s the trick. Cooper unexpectedly finds himself in an uncomfortable situation from which he cannot escape – and that is an experience that everyone has had. Yes, he is evil, but suddenly he becomes human. That was the basic idea of ​​the film from the beginning. And that is what I love about [M.] Night [Shyamalan] so much too. He is one of the best directors of our time who makes films with original ideas. It’s nice to know that there are still stories that can surprise us and introduce us to characters we’ve never seen before.

I can even imagine Cooper becoming a new iconic movie character. Just that serial killer laugh you put on at the end.

Cooper goes on a truly bizarre journey in the film. How does a monster find a little bit of humanity, at least for himself? How does he react when he can completely drop the facade? When he laughs, he is at his freest.

While watching, I was reminded of two films in particular: Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock and The Shining by Stanley Kubrick. Were these influences that you talked about during filming?

Night definitely had a few films that he kept coming back to. I don’t remember if the ones you just mentioned were among them. When we were talking about the film at the beginning, he definitely mentioned Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. But I can see how you got to the other films.

Der Aspekt, der mich am meisten an Trap fasziniert, ist die Verortung bei einem Konzert in einer Arena mit 20.000 Sitzplätzen. Wie habt ihr das gedreht?

Bei der Eras Tour habe ich das gemerkt, wie viel Aufwand in einem Konzert steckt. Das ist ein Großprojekt für sich allein und erfordert unfassbar viel Planung. Auch bei uns musste alles bis ins kleinste Detail vorbereitet werden, bevor wir mit den Dreharbeiten anfangen konnten. Saleka [Shyamalan] had written 14 new songs for the film. You don’t just do that. A whole show with choreography had to be put together. Dance rehearsals, lighting settings – we even had a real concert crew on set who took care of the technology. For example, all the images on the screens on the stage that are filmed during a concert. Their cameras were running at the same time as ours, so to speak.

Did you also play the music live?

Yes, it was all live and in front of an audience. We wanted the extras to feel like they were at a real concert. They could familiarize themselves with the songs beforehand so that their reactions at the concert would be authentic. That was very exciting. Last but not least, I have little experience of pop concerts and felt like a fish out of water. Here I am, a 45-year-old man – at the time – and I have no idea what is going on. But the music was great.

Another important part of the film is the relationship between Cooper and his daughter Riley, played by Ariel Donoghue. How is it working with a child actress in a film like this?

Ariel came to Canada from Australia with her family to film. She was just 13 years old, so we tried to make the shoot as pleasant as possible. My family came for a few weeks. We went to the zoo, had meals together, and spent a lot of time together. It was important to me that she felt comfortable on set, which ultimately benefits the father-daughter relationship in the film. I have the utmost respect for her, because child actors do double work. They are only allowed to work a certain number of hours, but they also have to go to school. That takes a lot of strength and energy. Ariel is an incredibly talented and professional actress.

Trap has been running since 1 August 2024 in German cinemas.