Josh Hartnett’s kids were not fans of the hair transformation that their dad underwent for his new film, Fight or Flight.
During a recent visit to the Today show, the 46-year-old actor revealed that his four children, whom he shares with wife Tamsin Egerton, burst into tears upon seeing that he’d dyed his brown locks a bright bleach blonde for his role in the high-flying action-comedy.
“My wife, she really liked it. She thought it was sexy and I don’t know why,” Hartnett said of his look in the James Madigan-directed film. “But my kids, no, they cried.”
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Josh Hartnett in ‘Fight or Flight’
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The Trap star noted, however, that he didn’t take their tears as a personal slight against him going blonde. “They cry every time I change my look,” he added, “and, being an actor, I have to do that quite a bit.”
And, in their defense, Hartnett admitted that it must’ve been quite a shocking change for his little ones. “My dad’s had a beard his entire life,” he mentioned. “If he shaved his beard, I think I would cry too.”
He also explained that there is a very good reason why his character Lucas, a former secret service agent, chose to go with such a bold hair color. “The guy’s been on the run for a long time, he’s been living in one place, he had to kind of disguise himself over the last two years,” Hartnett said. “You’re meeting him at a very low point in his life. He’s given up.”
Hartnett and Egerton, who married in 2021, are the parents of four children who they are raising outside of the spotlight. They welcomed their first child together in 2015, before welcoming three more children in 2017, 2019, and 2024.
However, in a recent visit to The Tonight Show, Hartnett revealed that his kids — who are being raised in their mom’s home country of England — often love to poke fun at their Minnesota-born dad for all of his inherent Americanisms.
“My kids love to give me crap about being an American because I’m the only American in our house. I’m a foreigner in my own home,” Hartnett joked. “My middle one does a really good impersonation of me, [and] will just kind of turn to me and be like, ‘I’m Daddy, and I like pizza and I won’t mow the lawn.’”
He added that his youngest daughter has even started giving him British courses. “She keeps saying to me, ‘You might not understand this Daddy, but in England we say boot instead of trunk of a car,’” he continued. “And I’m like, ‘I’ve lived here for longer than you. I made you.’”
Fight or Flight is playing in cinemas now. Watch Hartnett discuss his kids’ strong reaction to his hair dye — and his thoughts on the Hartnett Renaissance — in the video above.
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