Josh Hartnett has always wanted to do what was least expected of him. What might be expected of a broad-chested, six-foot-three-inch football player turned actor with a strong jaw and deep-set brown eyes? Roles like himbo prom king. Daring pilot. Brave soldier. Which, sure, he has played. (See: The Virgin Suicides. Pearl Harbor. Black Hawk Down.) But especially since breaking out in a few of those roles at the turn of the millennium, he’s done everything he can to subvert the teen-idol persona, pursuing slightly offbeat characters who exist, as he puts it, “outside the heroic archetypes.” And even ditching Hollywood altogether.

Almost 20 years ago, Hartnett left L.A. for his home state of Minnesota. When that wasn’t quite far enough away, he moved to England, where he lives today in bucolic Hampshire with his wife, the model and actress Tamsin Egerton, and their four kids. 

But after lying low for years, appearing in a smattering of smaller, lesser-heralded projects, Hartnett, who just turned 46, is having something of a comeback. Perhaps you’ve heard. First there were appearances in the sci-fi anthology Black Mirror and Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning blockbuster Oppenheimer last year. Then, in June, he cameoed in the highly anticipated third season of The Bear, as Richie’s ex-wife’s fiancé Frank, a note-perfect earnest future stepdad. And now comes his first starring role in a long while, in M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, Trap (in theaters).

“I was never a person that had a career path in mind or wanted to be the biggest movie star in the world,” Hartnett says, sitting in Manhattan’s Crosby Street Hotel. “That wasn’t who I ever was. So it wasn’t like I stepped away, it was just that people had an idea of what I could be. And I was never feeling that way.”

With Trap, Hartnett has landed one of his most left-field roles yet. He plays Cooper, a doting suburban dad taking his young daughter to see her favorite pop star. But Cooper soon learns that the concert is just one big setup to expose his double life as a serial killer known as the Butcher.

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“It’s a coming-of-age story for a serial killer,” says Hartnett, a kinder and less imposing presence than Cooper appears onscreen. In fact, he looks almost exactly the same as he’s looked for nearly three decades. “This is a character that thinks of himself in a certain way and has been putting on this front. Underneath it, he’s been consistent in believing he’s this abomination, this monster. This is the day that he finds out that maybe there’s a part of himself that’s not.”

As a longtime fan of Shyamalan’s work, Hartnett was invested in Trap from the moment he read the script. It reminded him of self-contained, Nineties-era, filmmaker-driven thrillers. “It’s like looking at Die Hard through the eyes of Hans Gruber,” he says, breaking into his signature crooked smile. “It’s high-concept entertainment, meant for a large audience, but it’s completely new. We don’t need IP or a previous movie to create a sequel for it to be entertaining for the audience. That doesn’t happen so much anymore.”

While an early reference from Shyamalan for Cooper was Ted Bundy, Hartnett focused more on the psychology behind psychopaths rather than any specific historical figure. He also wanted to zero in on the “girl dad” aspects of the character, channeling a ripped-from-parenting-blogs enthusiasm for whatever his daughter loves. In the moments before Cooper’s veneer begins to crack, he’s a father doing all the right things: letting his daughter blast the music in the car, buying her merch, advising her on how to handle school bullies. It makes the duality of his violent tendencies more jarring, for both the audience and Cooper himself.

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“He’s learning more about [his daughter] and how he feels about her,” Hartnett explains.

Just as Trap began filming, news of a real-life serial killer suspect broke: A man was arrested and accused in the so-called Gilgo Beach killings on Long Island, a series of murders that took place over decades, all while the accused was living a normal life nearby as an architect, husband, and father. To Hartnett, the case underscores one of the big ideas behind Trap: “It could be anybody. That’s the whole point. It doesn’t have to be a Ted Bundy or a John Wayne Gacy. It could be your neighbor right now.”

Despite the dark subject matter, there was plenty of levity on set. Hartnett got to reunite briefly with an old friend, Kid Cudi. The rapper and actor makes a cameo in Trap as another pop star called the Thinker. In 2009, Hartnett and Cudi met at a Ratatat concert when Cudi was just starting to blow up. They connected instantly, and Hartnett even directed the video for Cudi’s single “Pursuit of Happiness” after the rapper wanted to abandon the idea for the original video.

“He didn’t have any money to make it because they’d already spent the money on the first concept,” Hartnett explains, “so we cobbled together like five grand and shot at a place in the West Village.” They haven’t seen each other much since Hartnett moved to the U.K., so their two days filming were an overdue reunion.

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While Trap seems to mark the peak of what people have deemed the “Josh Hartnett Renaissance,” the actor has no intention of exploiting the moment for celebrity status and a superhero suit. He’s stayed hungry for the more unconventional roles he was doing when he was just cutting his teeth — and working with directors he’s long admired, like Nolan and Shyamalan, is opening the door once again.

“It’s so much easier to do things within this business when you’re a little bit older,” he says, “because you’re not worried about other people defining you to the public in a way that you don’t feel comfortable with, because your frontal lobe is fully developed. It wasn’t when I was 20.

“I started my career with The Faculty and The Virgin Suicides, and those characters are weird,” he continues. “I thought I was going to be able to continue to play weird characters or characters that were outside of the heroic archetypes. And after certain movies came out, the studios or whoever was in charge wanted me to stay on that treadmill. But I just continued doing my own thing, and it was hard. It became harder to get audiences to come along to see them because you need good partners, good collaborators that are going to be able to push it through to the public. You need to sell the movie.”

Now Hartnett, who worked in a video store before he began acting, has a list of directors he would love to work with one day. The Coen brothers are at the top, though Joel and Ethan have been working on solo pursuits the last few years. Martin Scorsese also comes to mind, though he’s doubtful that moment will come.

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As for what’s next, Hartnett is hoping to take another “left turn” and continue surprising people. “It’s all about directors, so if a good director was making a musical, I’m game,” he says. He would also be open to returning to The Bear. “I don’t know what magic they got going on there but it’s like a clubhouse,” he says of the set. “Even actors that are not on for the day are there. It’s all just fun for them.”

Maybe the most unexpected turn would be starring in something his kids could watch — no sex or serial killers or battlefield gore. “I’ve never made a movie that’s for young audiences, and my kids don’t really understand what I do,” he admits. “Let’s put that out in the world.”