Fatherhood has given me more perspective, says Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett's experience of fatherhood has given him "more perspective".

The 48-year-old actor has four kids with wife Tamsin Egerton, and Josh admits that his experience of fatherhood has encouraged him to explore different kinds of on-screen roles.

The movie star - who lives in England with his young family - told Variety: "A lot has changed in my life and in my career due to the fact that I’m a parent, but also due to the fact that I’m just older, I have more perspective.

"But parenthood gives you a lot of perspective. It probably would have given me perspective if I had kids in my 20s. It’s the chance to be outside of yourself. You’re making choices and decisions based not solely on your own needs and desires, you’re making them based off someone else. And that takes a total mind shift."

The film star said: "I think every parent would say that there’s a before and after, and it’s surely affected my work, and it’s definitely affected my life. I can break it down and I could say a lot of different things about it, but it’s affected it wholly."

Josh previously claimed that he quit Hollywood for the sake of his "sanity".

The actor became one of the most sought-after stars in the movie business in the late 90s and early 2000s - but Josh ultimately decided to step back from Hollywood in order to focus on independent projects.

Speaking to his O co-star Julia Stiles for Interview magazine, Josh explained: "I never really lived in LA. Even when we were making O, I was in Minnesota, New York, nowhere, because I was living from set to set.

"I drove my car down from Minnesota to shoot O and then drove back after that. But the choice to step back from the industry had more to do with just plain sanity."

Josh acknowledged that fame didn't give him the "satisfaction" he was seeking at the time.

He shared: "I wanted to be myself amongst people that I knew, so I was able to revert back to my family and friends in Minnesota.

"Also, after a certain amount of time chasing a goal, I realised that achieving these things wasn’t giving me back the satisfaction I hoped it would, so I had to find something else to fill that gap."