Woody Harrelson seems to be have been around forever. He’s one of those actors that has been an ever constant presence in my life. I feel I’ve grown up with his career. He’s also quite interesting in that I don’t know many actors who have made such a change in their roles over the years. I saw him in Solo: A Star Wars Story the other week and I thought he played the part brilliantly. When I first heard he was cast in the movie I was slightly worried that it might have been a bit too much like his Hunger Games role and perhaps he would be phoning it in just because he wanted to tick Star Wars off his list. But on the contrary, I thought he was great.
Obviously he rose to fame as Woody Boyd in Cheers back in the early 80s. My family all used to watch Cheers on a Friday night and Woody was always my favourite. Harrelson played him so well that I assumed the actor must have been just like the character. Perhaps the fact that his name was also Woody helped me make that assumption. After Cheers finished I found it strange to think about Woody Harrelson playing any other role. It helped slightly that his first big film role was in White Men Can’t Jump, a film I love, where he does play perhaps a kind of evolved version of Woody Boyd; a happy go lucky young man who is perhaps slightly naive in places. It certainly wasn’t a million miles from the Woody we knew from Cheers.
In his personal life he seems to be a bit of a fun guy. I don’t know too much about him but I know he is a vegan, an environmental activist, a strong proponent of various uses of hemp and other cannabis related products. I remember him appearing on a chat show a while ago where he told the host all the different things that he has that are made out of hemp at his home in Hawaii. All sounded very interesting and I think he helped with the push to make cannabis legal in some US states.
But this persona is not quite where he went with his roles after White Men Can’t Jump. Only a couple of years later he starred in the extremely controversial Natural Born Killers, a fascinating film by Oliver Stone (written by Quentin Tarantino) accused of glorifying serial killing. This was a huge departure for Harrelson and was the perfect vehicle for him to get rid of the Woody Boyd albatross that was around his neck. It allowed us to see a different side to Woody Harrelson. A tougher, grittier side. One that he has revisited several times in films particularly perhaps in Rampart.
He has played many different styles of roles, from good guys to bad guys, comedy to gritty, shallow to deep. Perhaps the role that allowed him to show off his whole range in the best way was the great The People vs Larry Flynt where Harrelson received his first Oscar nomination (for Best Oscar).
There are some of his more recent movies that I haven’t watched yet, including The Messenger and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, but here are my favourite roles of his that I have watched so far over the years.
10. The Hunger Games
9. War for the Planet of the Apes
8. No Country for Old Men
7. Solo: A Star Wars Story
6. Natural Born Killers
5. The Thin Red Line
4. True Detective
3. Rampart
2. Cheers
1. The People vs Larry Flynt