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Woodrow Tracy Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor. He first became known for his role as bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1985–1993), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from five nominations. Harrelson received three Academy Award nominations: Best Actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and Best Supporting Actor for The Messenger (2009) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
Other notable films include White Men Can't Jump (1992), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Thin Red Line (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), Seven Pounds (2008), Zombieland (2009), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Now You See Me (2013), The Edge of Seventeen (2016), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), (2021), and Triangle of Sadness (2022). He also played Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015) and Tobias Beckett in (2018).
Harrelson received further Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his portrayal of Steve Schmidt in the HBO film Game Change (2012) and a detective in the HBO crime anthology series True Detective (2014). He also portrayed E. Howard Hunt in the HBO political limited series White House Plumbers (2023).
Harrelson's family was poor and relied on his mother's wages. He attended The Briarwood School in Houston, Texas. In 1973, he moved to his mother's native city of Lebanon, Ohio, where he attended Lebanon High School, from which he graduated in 1979. He spent the summer of 1979 working at Kings Island amusement park.
Harrelson attended Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana, where he studied theater and English. While there, he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and became friends with former vice president Mike Pence. He graduated in 1983.
While still working on Cheers, Harrelson restarted his film career. His first movie had been Wildcats, a 1986 football comedy with Goldie Hawn. He followed his performance in Wildcats with the 1990 romantic comedy Cool Blue, alongside Hank Azaria. He reunited with Wesley Snipes (who also had debuted in Wildcats) in the box-office hit White Men Can't Jump (1992) and the action movie Money Train (1995). In 1993, Harrelson starred opposite Robert Redford and Demi Moore in the drama Indecent Proposal, which was a box office success, earning a worldwide total of over $265,000,000. He then played Mickey Knox in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and Dr. Michael Raynolds in the Michael Cimino film The Sunchaser.
In June 6, 2010, Harrelson took part playing in for UNICEF UK at Old Trafford in Manchester. The match was broadcast live on UK's ITV television. After being brought on as a substitute for Gordon Ramsay, Harrelson took the final penalty in the penalty shootout, following a 2–2 draw after 91.2 minutes. Despite being initially unaware of exactly from where his kick had to be taken, Harrelson scored to win the game for "The Rest of the World" team, beating England for the first time since the tournament began. When later interviewed, he claimed that he "didn't even remember the moment of scoring." In 2011, he starred as Tommy in the movie Friends with Benefits. Harrelson narrated the 2011 film ETHOS, which explores the idea of a self-destructing modern society, governed by unequal power and failed democratic ideals. Harrelson also took part in on May 27, 2012. The match ended 3–1 in favor of England.
Harrelson returned to television in 2014, starring along with Matthew McConaughey in the first season of the HBO crime series True Detective, where he played Marty Hart, a Louisiana cop investigating murders that took place over a timespan of 17 years. He and McConaughey received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series losing to Bryan Cranston for the final season of Breaking Bad. In 2015, Woody Harrelson and daughter Zoe starred in a 7-minute short film for U2's 'Song for Someone.' In 2016, Harrelson announced that he would direct, write, produce, and star in a film, Lost in London, which was shot as a single take and premiered live on January 19, 2017. Harrelson played police chief Bill Willoughby in the black comedy crime film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, released in 2017, for which he received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. In 2017, he played the antagonist The Colonel in the science fiction film War for the Planet of the Apes. Also that year, he starred in comedic drama film The Glass Castle, an adaptation of Jeannette Walls's memoir.
In 2018, Harrelson played Tobias Beckett, a criminal and Han Solo's mentor in Lucasfilm's . In 2018, Harrelson appeared in a cameo at the end of the film Venom, portraying Cletus Kasady, and he reprised the role as the main antagonist, also voicing the symbiote Carnage who joins with Kasady, in the 2021 sequel . In 2019, he starred with Kevin Costner in The Highwaymen. In November 2019, he starred in Roland Emmerich's blockbuster movie Midway, playing Admiral Chester Nimitz. The same year he reprised his role of Tallahassee in (2019). Starting in 2019, Harrelson made numerous appearances portraying Joe Biden on Saturday Night Live, before being replaced by Jim Carrey.
In March 2021, he is set to portray Felix Kersten in The Man with the Miraculous Hands, the feature film adaptation of Joseph Kessel's 1960 novel of the same title.Elsa Keslassy: Woody Harrelson to Star in Oren Moverman's ‘The Man With the Miraculous Hands’ . Variety, March 20, 2021. Retrieved April 2, 2021. Harrelson starred in the HBO political limited series White House Plumbers (2023) where he portrayed intelligence officer E. Howard Hunt. The series is focused on the Watergate scandal and investigation. Harrelson also executive produced the series. Also in 2023, he starred in Champions, as a disgraced coach coerced to head up a Special Olympics basketball team, featuring many actors with special needs.
In 2008, he married Laura Louie, a co-founder of the organic food delivery service Yoganics. They met in 1987 when she worked as his personal assistant. They reside in Maui, Hawaii, and have three daughters (born in 1993, 1996, and 2006).
Harrelson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) from Hanover College in 2014.
Harrelson is a fan of chess. In November 2018, he attended the first game of the World Chess Championship in London, played between Norwegian champion Magnus Carlsen and American contender Fabiano Caruana. He made the ceremonial first move for the game. He had also played the ceremonial first move for the previous World Chess Championship, held in New York City in 2016.
In 1999 in Prague, Woody Harrelson, playing White, employed the Parham Attack, named after Bernard Parham, to draw World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. However, Harrelson was aided by several chess Grandmasters who were in Prague to spectate the chess match between GM Alexei Shirov and GM Judit Polgár.
In 2020, Harrelson was seen practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu while filming, having received the first stripe on his white belt.
Harrelson is a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals.
In 2023, Harrelson's longtime friend and True Detective co-star/co-executive producer Matthew McConaughey stated that he and Harrelson could potentially be brothers. McConaughey's mother claimed to have been intimate with Harrelson's father, Charles Harrelson, around the time of McConaughey's conception.
Harrelson is friends with former Representative Dean Phillips. Phillips met and befriended Harrelson when Harrelson rented his house while shooting the movie Wilson. Harrelson joined Phillips on a trip to Vietnam, where Phillips's father was killed in a helicopter crash.
Harrelson was a religious Presbyterian as a child, and studied theology during college. Harrelson told Playboy in October 2009, "I was getting into theology and studying the roots of the Bible, but then I started to discover the man-made nature of it. I started seeing things that made me ask, 'Is God really speaking through this instrument?' My eyes opened to the reality of the Bible being just a document to control people." He describes himself as having "a strong spiritual life".
In April 2020, Harrelson made a post on Instagram promoting the conspiracy theory that claims a link between 5G networks and COVID-19, which was later deleted. In May 2022, Harrelson said he "doesn't believe in the germ theory" and found the use of face masks as a preventative measure against COVID-19 to be "absurd", adding, "I'm sick of like, you're wearing a mask, and you think it contains your breath—but if it did you'd die, you'd be breathing in your own carbon monoxide ."
In 2002, Harrelson was arrested in London after an incident in a taxi that ended in a police chase. Harrelson was taken to a London police station and later released on bail. The case was later dismissed after Harrelson paid the taxi driver involved in the incident £550 ($844). This became the inspiration for his 2017 live-streamed film Lost in London.
In 2008, TMZ photographer Josh Levine filed a lawsuit against Harrelson for an alleged attack outside a Hollywood nightclub in 2006. A video of the incident appeared to show Harrelson grabbing a camera and clashing with the photographer. Los Angeles prosecutors declined to press charges against the actor, but Levine filed a suit that summer asking for $2.5 million in damages. The case was dismissed in April 2010.
Harrelson has attended environmental events such as the PICNIC'07 festival that was held in Amsterdam in September 2007. PICNIC describes its annual festival as "three intensive days when we mix creativity, science, technology, media, and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation". He once scaled the Golden Gate Bridge with members of North Coast Earth First! group to unfurl a banner that read, "Hurwitz, aren't ancient redwoods more precious than gold?" in protest of Maxxam Inc. CEO Charles Hurwitz, who once stated, "He who has the gold, makes the rules."
Harrelson once traveled to the west coast in the U.S. on a bike and a domino caravan with a hemp oil-fueled biodiesel bus with the Spitfire Agency (the subject of the independent documentary Go Further) and narrated the 1999 documentary Grass. He briefly owned an oxygen bar in West Hollywood called "O2".
Harrelson has spoken publicly against the 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as previously protesting against the Gulf War, both at UCLA as well as during a college concert tour in Iowa and Nebraska in 1991 under the auspices of "Woody Harrelson Educational Tours". In October 2009, he was given an honorary degree by York University for his contributions in the fields of environmental education, sustainability, and activism.
In June 2010, Harrelson took part in Soccer Aid at Old Trafford in Manchester to raise money for UNICEF. Harrelson played the last 15 minutes and scored the winning goal in the penalty shootout following a 2–2 draw during normal time. "England Beaten at Soccer Aid" . MTV. Retrieved August 25, 2016 He played in the UNICEF game 2012, playing the last 10 minutes of the game for the Rest of the World team, losing 3–1 to England.
In 2023, he appeared to endorse Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In May 2024, Kennedy's campaign released a short documentary on the life and career of RFK Jr, narrated by Harrelson.
Aside from his numerous successes in the industry, other credits include North Country (2005), No Country for Old Men (2007), 2012, Zombieland (both 2009), Now You See Me (2013) and its 2016 sequel, The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), The Edge of Seventeen, LBJ (both 2016), The Glass Castle (2017) and Kate (2021), Harrelson has also starred in critically panned films, with his role in 1993's Indecent Proposal winning him the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor in 1994.
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