Who would have thought that the fresh-faced, dopey bartender on the TV show Cheers would turn into one of the most versatile, prolific actors of his time? Woody Harrelson has played a stone-faced Marine, a porn king, and a sociopathic criminal. He’s just arrived Off-Broadway in two new roles: playwright and director.
Bullet for Adolf is loosely based on Harrelson’s life: it’s set during a summer of partying hard and working construction in Houston, where he met his friend Frankie Hyman (with whom he wrote the play). The show is a throwback to the early 1980s, with big, broad laughs. “The humor is often a challenging humor,” he explains, “like we challenge you to laugh at this.”
Writing has come slowly to Harrelson. “I have to fight my laziness. It's a real battle,” he tells Kurt Andersen. “One of the best attributes a writer can have is to be hungry. I haven't really been hungry, I've had a cushy life.” Not really that cushy, though; Harrelson paid his dues, pounding the pavement in search of an agent, understudying on Broadway, and enduring bad advice: “When I had just moved to New York, I met with a casting person or an agent, and the guy said, ‘You will never work if you don't get that space filled between your teeth.’”
More than 40 films later, Harrelson has also become famous for his support of marijuana and veganism. “I do believe in healthy eating,” he says, “but I find that it’s very hard to preach to people. You stand between someone and their meat, it can get very uncomfortable!” But he’s enjoyed playing characters unlike himself, including the Republican political strategist Steve Schmidt in the HBO movie Game Change. “We are kind of diametrically opposed, there's certain issues we can't really discuss. But we did become friends,” he says. “And I'm really proud to have gotten to play him. I think he's a cut above the average political person I've met. You know, the average political person I've met is a cut below most paparazzi.”
Bonus Track: The Hunger Games
Harrelson admits he initially passed on the role of Haymitch, the boozy coach in the Hunger Games saga. But once on-set, he pushed director Gary Ross to let him play it even boozier.
You Know My Name
Artist: The BeatlesAlbum: Anthology 2Label: CapitolPurchase: AmazonSweet Jane
Artist: Cowboy JunkiesAlbum: Natural Born Killers SoundtrackLabel: Fontana InterscopePurchase: AmazonWild and Free (feat. Woody Harrelson)
Artist: Ziggy MarleyAlbum: Wild and Free
Featured Comments
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Fantastic interview. Love you, Alan! You were one of the main influences for me to get back into acting later ...
on Alan Cumming -
Really difficult to convey this as a "sound story" and it was done beautifully. Really compelling.
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC Radio, and is funded in part by Ken and Lucy Lehman and the National Endowment for the Arts. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our Science and Creativity series is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Comments [6]
Woody (and those who share his anti-anti-depressant views) should listen to this week's This American Life <http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/207/special-ed> Chapter Two in which "We hear from a mother and her son. By age seven, he'd had heart failure and been diagnosed as bipolar. And then — after a period as the world's youngest Stephen Hawking fan — he got better."
I was startled by Kurt's quip about Catholics. For one who once wrote that post JFK's election, "anti-Catholic prejudice was a quaint artifact" - maybe not so much, eh?
Kurt, you really displayed your ignorance with that remark to Woody Harrelson about "your scientology tract there..." when he talked about the well-documented role that prescription antidepressants have played in school shootings. There is a broad-based, growing movement of people who are fed up with the way psychiatrists and drug companies have attempted to pathologize every aspect of modern life, and most of tehm have nothing whatsoever to do wth the Church of Scientology. Here's an idea for a program: You could interview some of the leaders in that movement that I just mentioned, like dissident psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, organizer David Oaks or PsychRights attorney Jim Gottstein. That's if you're interested in being fair.
Glad Woody bailed you out re your Catholic remark...at best ignorant at worse intolerent
I loved the Woody interview. As a long-time Woody fan, and having lived Houston, I appreciated his self-acceptance and direct, perceptive insights about theater and acting. I also loved the natural and comfortable tenor of your conversation with him. An excellent interview. Glad he has his accent and the space between his teeth. Too funny that he complimented you on doing an good job with the interview.
Woody, way to go on pointing out the link on anti-depressant use and violence. It's a far more causative link than violent media images. The later isn't inert, but nothing compared to these addictive mind-altering drugs. Currently, the dialogue is almost non-existant with pharmaceutical companies skewing the discourse.
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