Tyra Banks was promised Josh Hartnett’s career if she took a role in Halloween: Resurrection, and she laughed about how badly that bet paid off.
The supermodel tells Entertainment Weekly that her agent in 2002 pushed her toward the horror franchise by pointing at Hartnett’s success in Scream. The logic was simple: Hartnett took a role in a post-Scream Halloween feature, and his career soared. Banks, who had appeared in John Singleton’s 1995 drama Higher Learning, was told she could do the same by joining Halloween: Resurrection.
“I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that,'” Banks said. “What is it going to do for my career? I’m a model, and I need to do things that are kind of different to get this acting career that I want […] He was like, ‘No, Josh Hartnett did Halloween, and look what he’s doing now!'”
“I was like, yeah, okay, this is going to do it for me,” she said, before immediately confirming the opposite. “Not only did it not do anything for me, they cut the damn death scene.”
What the Agent Promised
Banks says the pitch went beyond a simple horror role. She was promised the career of Josh Hartnett, plus an iconic death scene that would last forever. Neither happened.
“So, I have beef with Halloween 8!” she laughs. The joke lands because the sequel delivered none of what she was sold.
The Film That Missed Its Mark
Halloween: Resurrection arrived in 2002, four years after Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. The film boasted marquee names like rapper Busta Rhymes and Thomas Ian Nicholas from Rookie Of The Year, along with Jamie Lee Curtis in a cameo.
The movie dropped during a similar summer release window to its predecessor. Despite that, Resurrection earned only half of Halloween H20’s worldwide take.
Curtis’s cameo was described as “shitty,” and Banks’s own death scene was cut entirely.
Why the Pitch Made Sense on Paper
Charitably speaking, the agent’s reasoning held together on paper. Hartnett’s career exploded after Scream, and taking a role in a hot horror series seemed like a safe move for a model trying to break into acting.
Banks says she bought into the idea at first. “I was like, yeah, okay, this is going to do it for me,” she said.
Then she confirmed the opposite.
The Running Order of Events
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Banks appears in Higher Learning | 1995 |
| Banks appears in Love Stinks | 1999 |
| Banks appears in Love & Basketball and Coyote Ugly | 2000 |
| Hartnett appears in Scream | 1996 |
| Halloween H20: 20 Years Later released | Pre-Resurrection |
| Halloween: Resurrection released | 2002 |
| Banks declines the Halloween offer | Before Resurrection |
| Banks hosts America’s Next Top Model | One year later |
What Happened Instead
The film fell short of its predecessor’s numbers, and Banks got neither the career boost nor the death scene. She was promised the Hartnett effect, and she got a cameo that was described as “shitty.”
The irony is that Banks went on to host America’s Next Top Model one year later. The source does not say whether Resurrection outlived the memory of that show.
In other words, the dubious honor of appearing in Resurrection might have been a blessing in disguise.
The Agent’s Pitch, Revisited
The agent’s argument rested on a simple comparison: Hartnett took a horror role, and his career took off. Banks took the same bait and found it hollow.
The story is a reminder that careers are rarely made by a single film, and that agents sometimes sell the future without delivering on it.
The model took the risk, the movie missed, and the career boost never showed up.
The lesson is simple: promises on paper are easy to make, and the actual results often miss the mark.
See the video the story is built around at The A.V. Club.
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