Hartnett’s hairy 14 days on the set of '30 Days’

In "30 Days of Night," Josh Hartnett plays a sheriff who defends his remote Alaskan village from marauding vampires with only his wits and an axe. The action-horror film opens today.

Q Why did you go to the southern hemisphere to shoot a movie about the North Pole?

A We shot it in the south island of New Zealand while it was summertime here. We were up in the mountains where it's extremely snowy. And we shot a lot of it in Auckland, where it wasn't snowy, on sound stages. It presented problems. When you get cameras up in that sort of temperature they start to freeze. But we didn't have any real setbacks except that I had mono when we started, so I was dying, literally. Which was difficult.

Q This isn't a campy vampire movie, but really an acting showcase. When did you realize that this was a project that was really going to allow you to perform?

A I never would have signed on to it had it not been a film like this. Sam Raimi was the first person to try to convince me to do it. I'd been doing a lot of character-based independent films and actually hadn't done a studio film since "Hollywood Homicide." He called and said, "You've really got to take this seriously." And I said, "A vampire film? Come on." He convinced me to watch David Slade's movie "Hard Candy" and to read the graphic novel and to really think about what the movie is. Stuart Beatty wrote the original version of the script, and he wrote "Collateral," so obviously they were going for a higher level than most horror films. Then I sat down with David who pulled off something incredible with his film, especially with 14 days and 600 grand to shoot it. We sat down together at the Bryant-Lake Bowl on a beautiful summer day and he showed me a couple of tests of what the vampires were going to look like. He showed me clips on a laptop and they were terrifying. He was dead-set to have me in it, he thought I was the perfect guy to play this role. I was wondering why. I hadn't done anything that was even remotely action-y in a long time. He told me he wanted it to be a complex character, he wanted it to have flaws and not just be a classic hero. Then we walked outside and he took a couple of pictures of the outside of the Bryant-Lake Bowl with his digital camera, and a day later I got an e-mail from him and he sent me those two pictures of the Bryant-lake Bowl and they were so haunting and odd and murky and dark and moody I didn't recognize the place. And I thought if he can do that on a crisp summer day at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, what could he do with a set and money? He can make a really spooky film. So I signed on.

Q Was Danny Huston already signed up as the lead vampire when you joined?

A No, and it was a saga getting Danny on the film. He had just done "Marie Antoinette," playing this posh, foppish brother of the duke of Austria and they didn't see how he could be this badass killing machine. I'd just seen "The Proposition" and I told everybody at the studio, "You just have to let this guy play this role." Finally I convinced everybody to watch "The Proposition," and they all loved him now because he's amazing. But then Danny was moving on to something else so I had to sit on the phone with him for three days, convincing him that the film hinged on him creating a really strong vampire character. "If it was a lesser actor the movie's going to fail and I'm going to be hung out to dry. You gotta save me, man!"

Q Was it uncomfortable being covered in sugar-syrup blood under hot lights all day?

A I didn't care about the blood because I had this fake beard on. The fake beard was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever encountered in my entire life. I think that getting your prostate checked is less uncomfortable than this fake beard. It was horrendous. It was somebody else's hair, and that's weird, and it's mixed with yak hair because you need some straight, some curly and yak hair has the right amount of curliness to it. Some of it's sewn into this lace that they put on in pieces and it takes an hour every day and some of it's laid straight on your face with glue. So you've got this glue all over your face the whole day, and it was the itchiest, most horrible thing in the entire world. When you take it off sometimes the glue sticks more to your face than to the lace so you end up pulling off pieces of skin. And the concept of having this yak hair and hair that grew out of somebody else's head getting in your mouth while you're eating is just not good news. So for me the blood was like a piece of cake. The other actors might complain but they don't understand the meaning of pain.

Q Some of your recent roles are in "The Black Dahlia,"Sin City,"Wicker Park,"Lucky Number Slevin" and now this. Are you totally in love with film noir at this point in your life?

A I've always liked noir films and I became really fascinated with them after being cast in "Black Dahlia." I watched everything that there was from "Double Indemnity" to "The Killers." You can get away with a lot in noir. You can get really dark, deal with human emotions that people don't want to see in studio films, and people will accept it. Modern noir is hard to classify. You can fit a lot under that label.

Q Your character here reminds me in some ways of the beleaguered young reporter you played in "Resurrecting the Champ." In "30 days of Night" you're playing an inexperienced sheriff who's trying to do the right thing, he's got good instincts, he wants to protect the people he cares for, but he's facing overwhelming pressure. Is there something about that kind of role that speaks to you now? Do you think that's where we're at?

A Yeah, honestly. I think that there's something that is driving us right now and -- I don't want to say that as a nation we've got the mindset of the character I'm playing, that's too grand. But I do think a lot of people feel that way. I feel like they've thrown their hands up in the air and said, "What can we do? I want to do the right thing and still everything seems to be collapsing around us." I think there's this feeling of impending doom that a lot of people have these days. I wish we could eliminate the fear of moving forward and just allow it to happen. And try our best to move in the right direction. But a lot of people are very scared. And I'm not above that, so I think I related to the characters on a very personal level.

Q You're kind of a big reader. Read any good books lately?

A Yeah! I read the new James Meek book: I don't think it's officially out yet, so I'm very lucky. It's called "We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" (about a novelist whose work predicts the 9/11 attacks). It's excellent. I read his novel before that and fell in love with it and wanted to option it to make a movie. It's called "The People's Act of Love" and it's genius. I tried to get the rights to it but they were already sold. So he said, you might want to read the new one and give us some money for that. I've been in Hong Kong for a long time so I've been getting into Asian literature; I've been a fan of Haruki Murakami's for a long time, so I dodged back into that.

Q You've been in two adaptations of graphic novels, "Sin City" and this. Why did you turn down the biggest comic role of all, Superman? Was it just because of the tights?

A It's such an iconic role that I think everybody has certain expectations of, that you have to fill. To take that on and survive it to take on other roles I think is difficult. They threw the world at me to take that and it was very tempting because they say. "You can do all these other films with or studio and you're our boy now and we'll make tons of great films together with great filmmakers and we'll foster your career." And that all sounds really good but the idea of branding myself in that way and never the chance that I would never be seen as anybody else was just too much for me. I'd rather toil away in small films and try and create interesting characters and try to create interesting characters and fall into them. Not just be one thing to everybody. I think it's hard to overcome something that iconic. It's going to be hard for James Gandolfini to overcome playing Tony Soprano. He's identified with that guy now.

Q You've been spending time in Hong Kong working on a film called "I Come With the Rain." What's that about?

A It's (young French-Vietnamese director) Tran Anh Hung's first English-language film. He's a really talented filmmaker; he made a film called "Scent of Green Papaya" and "Cyclo" and another called "Vertical Rays of the Sun." They're beautiful films. He's won the Golden Lion at Venice and the Golden Camera at Cannes, so he's got a lot of artistic clout. This film that we're doing, the story line is very esoteric. It's vaporous. It's hard to get a hold of. I couldn't tell you exactly what it's about. But I know it's going to be beautiful to look at and he'll make something poetic out of it. You know when you meet somebody who bowls you over with their intellect and their artistic integrity -- I really was craving to work with somebody like that. I came to set and every idea I had, for the first few days, he was like [goes into a French accent], "It's interesting but not exactly what we need to do." (Laughs.) That was the worst French accent in the history of time. I don't know what that was. He's a very talented guy and we hope these things turn out well, but there's a chance that they couldn't and that's the risk that we take.

Q What happened with "Mozart and the Whale," the undistributed 2004 film where you play an emotionally troubled guy entering his first romantic relationship?

A They edited that into kind of a weird version. The producers on the project decided to make it into a romantic comedy after we'd shot a drama. It's too bad because it's a true story about this autistic couple that I know and got to spend a lot of time with. I really loved playing that role and I think it's the best work that I've ever done. It's too bad these producers thought it was in their power to change everything.

Q So the next time we'll see you is in "August," a film you produced, co-starring David Bowie and Rip Torn?

A Yeah. Bowie plays my arch nemesis. He's only in it for a bit but he's a powerful presence. There are a lot of good actors in it, Naomie Harris and Adam Scott. It was fun to be part of a New York crew and shoot here. It's mostly about the character, a really brash but soulless salesman. He's the front man for a dotcom in 2001 when everything's falling apart. His life is crashing down around him and he's trying to keep it together with a smile and a lot of talking. Another guy up against impossible odds, but the characterization is entirely different.

Q Any idea what's happening with "Sin City 2"?

A No, I haven't heard word one. But I think The Ladykiller would have to come back. He's the only one who survived the last one. (Laughs.)

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186

Colin Covert • ccovert@startribune.com