For Josh Hartnett and Charlie Heaton, creating a father-son bond in 'Below' was easy

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Set us as preferred Josh Hartnett and Charlie Heaton know how to brood.The actors both found fame in their early 20s playing characters prone to pining and sulking: Hartnett became a heartthrob in the late ’90s and early 2000s with mellow roles in films including “The Virgin Suicides,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down.” Heaton, meanwhile, spent most of the last decade embodying the introverted Jonathan Byers on “Stranger Things.”But now, the duo are wearing their hearts on their sleeves in “Below,” a six-episode Netflix miniseries now streaming, in which they play a father and son living in a misty Newfoundland fishing village that is increasingly terrorized by something mysterious in the iceberg-filled waters.As Calvin and Wade Penney in “Below,” the actors are passionate and emotional.They get into animated family arguments and gleefully celebrate when things (occasionally) go their way.“It’s all on the page,” Hartnett said.

“All I had to do was show up and feel those things toward Charlie.”Filmed on location in Newfoundland, Canada, “Below” is the latest unexpected project for Hartnett, 48, who has been cultivating a career renaissance in recent years with roles in “Black Mirror,” “Oppenheimer,” “Trap” and this month’s “Verity.”Heaton, 32, has likewise been diversifying his post- “Stranger Things” portfolio.He played an ill-fated financial journalist in the fourth season of “Industry” and will next star in a “Peaky Blinders” sequel series.“I like trying to surprise people, and maybe surprise myself too,” Heaton said.When they convened for a joint video interview in late September, Heaton had recently returned to his London home from a music video shoot.

Hartnett had just finished putting his four children (with wife, the actor Tamsin Egerton) to b...