“Felt over-the-top to me”: Josh Hartnett Doubted M. Night Shyamalan’s One Bold Decision With ‘Trap’ Until a Taylor Swift Concert Totally Changed His Mind

Despite being one of the best actors in Hollywood, Josh Hartnett has managed to stay relatively under the radar, and that too by choice. He quickly gained the status of a teen idol when he first began gaining fame with his roles in movies like Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor.

Hartnett succeeded in staying away from the limelight for years, but his love for acting brought him back in business, and his most recent venture is Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. One particular move that the director chose to make for one scene in the movie made the actor doubtful of its authenticity. However, that doubt changed into certainty when he attended a Taylor Swift concert with his kids.

A Taylor Swift Concert Was What It Took for Josh Hartnett’s Mind to Change Regarding Some Scenes of Trap

It is no secret that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts are star-studded affairs. Ever since the songstress embarked on the tour, her concerts have seen the attendance of actors and musicians alike. This long list of celebrity names now also includes Josh Hartnett, who attended the Cruel Summer singer’s concert at the Wembley stadium in London.

Apart from the fact that his children got to experience a concert with their father, another good thing came out of this incident and it concerns the actor’s work. The movie Trap, which is his most recent venture, features a concert scene that is much like the ones that happen in today’s modern times. However, at the time, Hartnett was unaware of this fact until he experienced it in real-time.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the Target Number One actor reflected on how Swift’s concert changed his mind about director M. Night Shyamalan’s decision to show highly energetic people as the audience in the film.

What was amazing about it, I sent a picture to Night basically saying this is life imitating art. Because when we shot the film I felt like his characterization of the audience felt over-the-top to me, as someone who hadn’t been to a pop concert with their kids yet.

He stated that the atmosphere at concerts now is very different from the concerts that he attended in his time, as back then people were much more calmer than they are now.

Josh Hartnett on How He Initially Felt About the Concert Scenes in Trap

For those unversed, Trap follows the story of a serial killer who attends Lady Raven’s pop concert with his teen daughter, only to realize that the whole event is a sting operation being conducted by the police to catch him.

He revealed his thought process while filming the concert scenes for the movie, saying:

I was like, these guys are way too into it, people aren’t like this at concerts. I remember concerts being like, everybody’s too cool to really do anything. Things now are…they’re rabid. Kids are rabid about the artists that they love now.

Attending Swift’s concerts with his kids made him realize that Shyamalan’s depiction of the concert’s audience was actually right.

Trap is now in theatres.