{"id":11029,"date":"2022-02-10T12:18:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T11:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1581350"},"modified":"2022-02-10T12:42:27","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T11:42:27","slug":"josh-hartnett-on-the-fear-index-this-is-one-of-the-most-difficult-jobs-ive-ever-taken-on","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/josh-hartnett-on-the-fear-index-this-is-one-of-the-most-difficult-jobs-ive-ever-taken-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Hartnett on The Fear Index: \u201cThis is one of the most difficult jobs I\u2019ve ever taken on\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Abby Robinson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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\u201cI can\u2019t believe that I\u2019ve been allowed to do this for 25 years,\u201d said Josh Hartnett, musing on his career. \u201c<\/span>That\u2019s kind of insane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His first notable gig was a US remake of the Jimmy McGovern award-winning crime drama Cracker, in which Robbie Coltrane himself made an appearance in a guest role. <\/span>That was back in 1997, when Hartnett was a baby-faced 20-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t make the critical splash achieved by the original, but it was a springboard for Hartnett, who went on to enjoy a career spanning romantic comedies, war epics, horror, sci-fi and just about every genre going.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s predominantly associated with the big screen, but there have been a handful of TV projects that have caught his eye, such as his most recent work, <\/span>The Fear Index, which premieres today on Sky Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sky UK<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The psychological thriller is comprised of just four parts \u2013 a delicious offering in a world teeming with series that rumble on for double that, and longer. But that won\u2019t come as a surprise to those who have read the Robert Harris book on which it\u2019s based, which unfolds over just 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Hartnett leads the cast as Dr Alex Hoffman, a \u201cprodigy\u201d who was previously flexing his intellectual muscles at CERN, the world-class scientific research facility, <\/span>before going on to form his own i<\/span>nvestment company with his close friend Hugo (Arsher Ali).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey took out some of the more internal and character driven elements,\u201d said Hartnett of the contrast between the series and the original source material. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s necessary for something like this. For a four-hour series, you want people to be wanting more, continually watching and continually on the edge of their seats.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the book remained a vital tool for Hartnett, enabling him to fully enter Alex\u2019s inner landscape. <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have that cheat code, as it were,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the outside looking in, Hoffman Investment Technologies appears like any other establishment of its kind. But Alex and Hugo have a secret weapon fuelling their success: <\/span>VIXAL-4\u202f<\/span>,<\/span> an AI system developed by Alex that feeds off global events, from elections to terrorism to disease outbreak, to dominate the stock markets. It\u2019s an approach referred to as <\/span>the <\/span>volatility index, or fear index by traders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more money it makes, the more access it has, the more it\u2019s learning,\u201d said Hartnett. \u201cBut Alex is<\/span> not really into it for the money, even though he\u2019s having this enormous influence on the events around him, political and human.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hugo, by contrast, is motivated entirely by the fiscal gains, which leaves you questioning just how nourishing their brotherhood is.<\/p>\n

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Sky UK<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The capability of Alex\u2019s apparatus is most apparent following a <\/span>plane crash in the second episode, from which the company is set to benefit substantially. But while monitoring global affairs and making data-led decisions is one thing, seemingly knowing exactly what disasters will occur and when is another matter entirely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has VIXAL acquired that level of knowledge? Has Alex lost control of his creation, or is it merely following his orders?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a story about unchecked power and how dangerous that can be,\u201d said Hartnett, describing Harris\u2019s work as <\/span>applying the analogy of Frankenstein \u201cto the modern world\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt so natural. I was wondering why no one had done it before, Frankenstein\u2019s monster as AI. It\u2019s just so elegant.<\/span><\/p>

Fear feels like an especially timely theme to unpack given the sheer number of unsettling and destabilising events that we\u2019re exposed to on a near-constant loop. <\/span>From the impact of the pandemic to the resurgence of the far right, the climate change crisis to the rumblings of nuclear war, it\u2019s incredible that any of us manage to climb out of bed in the morning. We are, in many ways, teetering on a knife edge.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as Hartnett notes, \u201cthat isn\u2019t unique to us in this time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, this fits into our modern world and that sense of impending doom that we all seem to have right now, but I think every generation has that moment where they think that they\u2019re at the very end of the world,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it says something about us that we always think that we\u2019re the last generation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He went on to cite <\/span>the Vietnam and Cold Wars, US presidential assassinations and the attacks on civil rights activists.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always dealing with something as a human race that seems to be close to the annihilation of the species,\u201d he added. \u201cYes, we\u2019re living in a time of dread, but I have a little bit more hope that this may just be one in a long series of things that we will have to deal with. And hopefully we will. I don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to be dealt with, but people much smarter than me are working on it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sky UK<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Running alongside the questions that viewers will have about the morality of a system like VIXAL, which capitalises on angst, and what it is really capable of, <\/span>is Alex himself.<\/p>\n

The question \u2018Who is Alex Hoffman?\u2019 sits at the very centre of this narrative and is posited on a number of occasions by various characters. In the first two episodes that were made available for review, it\u2019s impossible to draw a clear conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read him with a more sympathetic view than I think most people would because he\u2019s a character I\u2019m playing,\u201d said Hartnett, echoing what many actors will tell you about finding redeemable or relatable traits in an effort to access the person they\u2019re portraying.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see Alex as someone who is in the same vein as Dr Frankenstein, someone who is obsessed with the question of how and has never considered the question of why. I don\u2019t think of him as an evil person, but if you don\u2019t consider how what you\u2019re doing is affecting other people, it can end up creating very bad consequences, and thereby making you a villain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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