Josh Hartnett depicts real life reporter Victor Malarek, who travels to Thailand to investigate a ... [+] bungled Canadian police sting operation in Daniel Roby's 'Most Wanted.'

Josh Hartnett is in Paris getting ready to go to work on the anticipated HBO docu-series Exterminate All The Brutes.

Its great, he says by phone, except that were all isolated. We have a lot of hoops to go through in order to make this work, so were just waiting on that. But its beautiful here from my window.

The four-part series will explore the far-reaching repercussions of European colonialism, and is based on various works, including Sven Lindqvists titular book. The series, created by Raoul Peck, combines documentary footage, animation and scripted scenes (performed by a cast that includes Hartnett).

The San Francisco-born, Minneapolis-raised actor, whose long list of credits includes roles in action movies including Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down and Wicker Park, to independent projects including Mozart And The Whale and August, is pleased to be one of the first productions approved by the Screen Actors Guild to begin, following months after the global pandemic shut down nearly all shoots. How far the docu-series will get remains to be seen, but the 42-year-old actor is optimistic.

In the meantime, Hartnett is promoting (remotely) his new film Most Wanted, in which he plays Victor Malarek, a Canadian investigative reporter who discovers that a police sting operation may have unlawfully entrapped an innocent man and cost him freedom. The drama, written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roby, is based on a true story involving a recovering heroin junkie named Daniel (Antoine Olivier Pilon) who, through a series of events, is pegged as a drug trafficker, illegally importing heroin on a mass scale to Canada from Thailand.

A costly police investigation is led by a shady investigator named Barry Cooper, eager to boost his sagging reputation within the department. Even when he finds out that the drug trafficker isnt who he is suspected to be, Cooper (Stephen McHattie) and his team continue to pursue him with the cooperation of Thai authorities. If it means allowing an innocent man to be sentenced to life in a Thai prison and covering up the loss of one of his officers in the process, so be it.

On a tip, Hartnetts Malarek begins sniffing around the case and uncovers clues that an innocent man is being wrongly accused. He convinces his reluctant newspaper editor to send him to Bangkok to investigate and his findings lead him to fight for Daniels freedom from his 100-year prison sentence, even it if means putting his own family at risk. Comedian Jim Gaffigan plays a shady informant who hatches the scheme that sets the operation in motion.

Saban Films Most Wanted arrives in theaters and On Demand Friday July 24.

Angela Dawson: Tell me about getting involved with this project. What was your interest in playing Victor Malarek?

Josh Hartnett: Initially, my interest came from the script and what the character goes through. It was a well-written script. It was a very long script. But I spoke to Daniel Roby, the director and writer, and he was so passionate about it and had spent so much time on it already in putting it together by the time I read it. Hes really an engaging guy. He got me into the idea of this character. I went to Toronto to meet Victor; I was in New York at the time. So, we spent a day going to (The Globe and) Mail, visiting his old haunts and his house. We talked about what he had gone through. Hes a very charismatic guy who had a clarity of purpose, second to none. Like he is in the film, he has a fantastic b.s. detector.Hes very bright but not in a precious way. He knows how to read people and I found him very compelling, in that sense. But theres also a gentleness and graciousness about him. I feel that had I not met him, I may not have had a complete sense of who he is and what he went through.

He was a kid who grew up in a boys home, so I got a sense of why he is compelled to do what he does. Doing investigative journalism is more than a job for him; its more of a calling for him. So, I respected him a lot. It was really a gift to be offered this part.

Dawson: The story is very timely in terms of shedding light on matters of law enforcement oversight and discussions of judicial reform.

Hartnett: Unfortunately, its kind of a timeless film. When Id read the script, I couldnt believe that something like this could happen just right next door from Minnesota. Just over the border in Canada, the government had created this system where it compelled (federal) officers to do what they did. The law enforcement agencies, at the time (the late 1980s), were engaged in this war on drugs, and they had a quota, essentially, of arresting people and making drug busts. It put law enforcement in a situation which could lead to an abuse of power.

This is, ultimately, what the story is about: an abuse of power, which is so relevant right now. It was relevant at the time we were making the film two years ago, and it was relevant in (the 1980s), when these events took place. Its been an issue for such a long time. Thats why the story highlights that we need good, independent journalists that will speak truth-to-power and will give us the facts surrounding these abuses of power.

It made making the film unsettling at the time we were doing it when journalists and newspapers were constantly being undermined and being compared with and put on an even playing field with online reports of conspiracy theorists. Its unnerving to me that were in that situation.

This story highlights the importance for these (fourth estate) institutions to remain funded in order to continue keeping the public informed about whats really going on behind the scenes. Otherwise, were just reading propaganda.

Josh Hartnett (right) plays Canadian investigative reporter Victor Malarek, who travels to Thailand ... [+] to help exonerate wrongly accused Daniel Leger (Antoine Olivier Pilon) from prison.

Dawson: How was it filming in Thailand?

Hartnett: This was put together on a (tight) budget. We didnt have a lot of extra room. What Daniel was about to accomplish in the short time we had to do it is absolutely mind-boggling to me. Its a real testament to his filmmaking style that he foresaw a lot of the issues that were going to be at play during the production process.

Our experience making it was shooting every day and shooting quickly. There was no setup time. It was fascinating, particularly shooting in the prison, which is actually a recently decommissioned prison and getting a real sense of what it was like there, and how the real character, Alain Olivier, survived it. You think about what you would do once you were inside those walls and you believe you will be there for life. Its a terrifying prospect, of course. We were able to experience that, firsthand, at the place where so many had been incarcerated. That helps in terms of the filmmaking process; it helps in terms of getting into mind frame of these characters, and the necessity that they all felt, and that Victor felt to do the right thing.

Bangkok is amazing, although I didnt get to see much of it. Daniel took us out one night to a fantastic restaurant but it takes about two hours to get anywhere by car in Bangkok, so we didnt venture out very often. It was mostly about getting to set and working our butts off all day. Of course, we had to try to keep cell phones off and out of sight in the background. But it was really an extraordinary city. Just so fast-paced and so many people around. I lived in New York for 20 years, and you think about the huge population and everybody living on top of each other, but it is nothing in comparison to Bangkok.

Dawson: What were you working on prior to the pandemic shut down? And what are you working on now?

Hartnett: Ive got (Lech Majewskis) Valley Of The Gods. John Malkovich is in that with me. I did something on the other end of the spectrum, which is Guy Ritchies new heist film (Cash Truck). I play kind of a goofy character in that. And Im working on (I Am Not Your Negro filmmaker) Raoul Pecks (Exterminate All The Brutes), which is something hes been working for the past 10 years. Its mostly documentary, and Im in (the scripted parts). That should be out by the end of the year. Im shooting for about three weeks here in France. Then, Im off to shoot another film in Oklahoma. Well have to see how things go.

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Josh Hartnetts Most Wanted Dramatizes Need For Free Press And Police Oversight - Forbes