Entertainment

Remember Josh Hartnett? He's Baaack

by Aly Semigran

Nothing dreadful about this: a new Penny Dreadful trailer has been released and the upcoming horror series on Showtime continues to pique our interest. The spot, titled "Just Like You," has the stars of the mind-bending show (which takes various classic horror stories and characters and meshes them together) individually tell us, "No matter what secrets you possess, no matter what fears you hold, no matter what darkness you hide, no wonder how monstrous your dreams, no matter what hungers you feel, there are others just like you." It's hard to decide whether that's comforting or creepy.

While the latest ad doesn't give us any real new footage of the series — which debuts on Sunday, May 11 at 9 p.m. — it does give us an eye's view (quite literally) of Josh Hartnett. Yes, that Josh Hartnett of The Faculty and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Pearl Harbor and those Teen People photo shoots that lived on your walls. Though Hartnett is hardly the only noteworthy star in the cast of the anticipated Penny Dreadful — the actor, now 35 years old, and appearing alongside the likes of Timothy Dalton and leading lady Eva Green — he is the only late '90s/early '00s dreamboat who disappeared from us for a while and has now returned.

Hartnett plays a charming, handsome American (not much of a stretch there) who finds himself in some pretty spooky situations in Victorian London on Penny Dreadful, but to anyone who grew up watching and swooning over Hartnett, he'll forever be known as the guy who did some truly impressive things with flower petals in 40 Days and 40 Nights. Here are five big reasons we're glad to have Josh Hartnett back in our lives.

He Knows How To Make An Entrance

It's one thing to have your film debut to be a horror movie, but it's another to have your film debut be a horror movie that's part of one of the most important sagas in the genre, playing the son of one of the most iconic characters of all-time. At the tender age of 20, Hartnett jumped right into the big time in 1998 playing Jamie Lee Curtis's son and Michelle Williams' love interest in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Not only could Harnett hold his own in the movie (despite that once-adorable, now terrible-looking choppy haircut), he was all the buzz when it hit theaters.

His Resume Was Necessary Viewing

If you grew up around the time Harnett became a star, then movies he appeared in like The Faculty, O, and The Virgin Suicides were pretty much gold-standard sleepover movies. (Or, at least, the ones you tried to sneak into with your friends at the movies.)

That Face

Yep, that very same one that made enduring the terrible Pearl Harbor even remotely endurable.

Everyone Loves A Good Comeback

In the early 2000s it was pretty much common knowledge that Josh Hartnett was the next big thing, and his turns in movies like Black Hawk Down all but solidified that. But even after starring in moderate mid-2000s hits like Sin City and 30 Days of Night, Hartnett has all but disappeared from the Hollywood spotlight. While the actor (whose only headline-grabbing romance was this alleged tryst) has hit the stage on London's West End in the adaptation of Rain Man and worked on various activism causes, he's still long overdue for a proper comeback.

Again, That Flower Thing

Here's looking at you, Hartnett.