‘Fight or Flight’ Interview: Josh Hartnett

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Josh Hartnett stars in ‘Fight or Flight’.

Opening in theaters on May 9th is the new action comedy ‘Fight or Flight’, which was directed by James Madigan (‘Marvel’s Runaways’), and stars Josh Hartnett (‘Trap’), Charithra Chandran (‘Dune: Prophecy’), and Katee Sackhoff (‘The Mandalorian’).

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Josh Hartnett about his work on ‘Fight or Flight’, his first reaction to the screenplay, the tone and style of the film, and shooting the movie’s intense action sequences.

Related Article: Director M. Night Shyamalan Talks ‘Trap’ and Working with Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett as Lucas Reyes in ‘Fight or Flight’. Photo: Vertical.

Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about your first reaction to the screenplay and did the tone and style of the movie read on the page?

Josh Hartnett: We worked a lot on the tone and the style after I read it. It was amazing. I thought the conceit of it was fantastic. The production company that sent it to me wanted me to do all my own stunts. I thought that would be an amazing challenge and opportunity at the age of 45, because you don’t get that. People don’t ask you to do your own stunts at 45 very often. Then finding the right tone was a lot of work for Jim and I. We knew what our references were going to be, what films we really liked and wanted to emulate, but also what films we didn’t want to emulate. We knew that we wanted this to be unique within the marketplace. So, the comedy had to be front-and-center and the action sequences had to be on point and it needed to all blend together in a seamless way and not feel canned. So, we knew that we had to shoot long sequences. We had to see that I was doing it all and it had to be at the same time funny and surprising. So, we added the drug stuff and a lot of the injuries because Jim really wanted to feel my character getting injured repeatedly so that you had this sense of jeopardy with the character the whole time. You didn’t feel like there was an inevitable win at the end of this. Ultimately, he needs other people to help him to win the day. So, it’s just a pure fun piece, but it also is, I think unique. I think audiences hopefully will respond to it.

(Right) Josh Hartnett as Lucas Reyes in ‘Fight or Flight’. Photo: Vertical.

MF: Finally, what was it like shooting the film’s intense action sequences with director James Madigan?

JH: I mean, we had an amazing stunt team, and I had a great stunt double who helped work out all the scenes while I was off shooting other scenes. So, we basically had time at the beginning, a couple of weeks to rehearse all the sequences, but they weren’t all finished by the time we got to filming. We only had five weeks to shoot it. So, I had to go and shoot, and my stunt guy would work out the scenes with the with stunt choreographers. Then I would come after work and insert myself into it and try to learn them as we had no extra time. There was no room for error, and we got incredibly lucky. We had such amazing people working on it. Jim was able to get everything he needed to put it together like this and I think we achieved a unique tone. I don’t know if we could have done it any other way. If we’d had more time, we might have ruined it. You know what I mean? It was something that came together because necessity is the mother of invention. We had to do a lot of stuff that was very handheld and very old school. Like when the body is ripped up with the chainsaw, that was just a dummy from an old costume factory or something that they pulled apart physically as I was sawing through it and it’s just shooting it at the right angle. We had a great DP. So, it just required an incredible amount of ingenuity. I’m very proud the whole team that put this together. I was very lucky.

“This flight goes nonstop to hell.”

R1 hr 37 minMay 9th, 2025

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A mercenary takes on the job of tracking down a target on a plane but must protect her when they’re surrounded by people trying to kill both of them. Read the Plot