Hollywood Star Says This is Key to a ‘Really Solid’ Marriage
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actor Josh Hartnett says the key to a strong marriage is giving your partner “as much as you can.”
“I think you have to give more than you feel you receive,” Hartnett told PEOPLE. “That’s the biggest thing.”
He continued, “If everybody feels like they’re giving about 80 percent to the relationship and the other person’s only giving 20, then you’re probably both giving 50. You have to really give as much as you can because innately, as human beings we’re a little bit selfish. We think we see all the good things that we do, but we don’t really notice necessarily all the good things that the other person’s doing all the time.”
“You have to consistently give more than you think you’re getting, then you guys will come somewhere in the middle,” Hartnett concluded. “If both people in the relationship understand that and try for that, then I think you can have a really solid base.”
Hartnett and his wife, Tamsin Egerton, have been together since 2013 and share four children. The family lives in the English countryside, far away from Hollywood’s glitz and glam — and that’s how Hartnett prefers it.
“We don’t bring [work] home,” he explained. “Dad has to go to work, and they do know what I do, but they don’t understand the thing yet. And I’m glad that they don’t. We’ll try and keep them away from it as much as possible because we want them to have normal upbringings.”
In addition to keeping his family out of the spotlight, Hartnett also enjoys the extra time life outside of Hollywood gives him with his children.
“People only want to talk about your career [in New York and L.A.],” the actor explained, adding that “nobody cares” about his fame in the U.K. town they live in.
“I never would have expected it. And time passes quickly,” Hartnett continued. “With four children, you have so much to do. In a way, less is happening. But more of the important stuff is happening. My oldest daughter is 8½ now — that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Hartnett’s commitment to family:
Actor Josh Hartnett says his Hollywood success means nothing without the support of “good community and good family.”
“Now that I have a family, when I go home at the end of the day, they don’t allow me the time to be self-indulgent and worry about what I did that day as a character, or stay in that mode,” Hartnett toldMen’s Health. “There are things I have to do — kids are demanding and they need your time.”
Hartnett and wife Tamsin Egerton are parents to four kids who are 9, 7, 5 and six months old. The couple have never shared the names or genders of their children and keep details about them private.
They have revealed that their family lives in Surrey, England, as Egerton is British and wanted to be close to her family.
Hartnett also wanted to be away from Hollywood, calling it “an unhealthy environment.”
“Making art, generally, is very important to me,” Hartnett continued. “But without a good stable background of good community and good family, it doesn’t really amount to much. You need the first for the second to work really well.”
Josh Hartnett decided to leave Hollywood in part because “people’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy.”
“People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me. A guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in… pic.twitter.com/SRjoJvAx3Q
— Variety (@Variety) July 29, 2024
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