Woody Harrelson is one of Hollywood’s great survivors. Each decade has seen a new facet appear in his screen persona. Thanks to his breakthrough role as the ditzy bartender in the smash hit sitcom Cheers, Harrelson was one of TV’s much loved stars. Desperate to free himself from that image, the nineties saw a different Woody Harrelson. Thanks to roles like the basketball hustler Billy Hoyle in White Men Can’t Jump and as a serial killer in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, Harrelson was the reluctant movie star.
The beginning of the millennium marked Harrelson as a character actor, appearing in many films in a supporting role. If his screen time wasn’t as long as the actors, it didn’t seem to matter much, as he regularly enhanced or even stole any scene that he was in. Other notable roles include No Country For Old Men, The People Vs Larry Flynt and The Walker – the latter of which saw him play a gay man who escorts rich old ladies to events.
Born in Texas, Harrelson’s early life is every bit as dramatic as some of his movies. His father was a contract killer and was convicted of killing a federal judge. He was sentenced to life prison, and eventually died there. Growing up the self confessed ‘mama’s boy’ who was ‘deeply mesmerised by the church’, Harrelson eventually ended his dream job of studying the bible after he performed a u-turn, accusing the Bible of being just a document to control people. Instead, he set out to be an actor.
He joined the cast of Cheers in 1985, replacing Nicholas Colasanto, who played the much-loved Coach for three seasons before sadly dying in real life. Harrelson would play Woody for eight years, winning an Emmy.
Lately, Harrelson has been on a bit of a winning streak. His role as the cynical Tallahassee in Zombieland saw him score one of his biggest box office hits, while darker roles in The Messenger and the recent Rampart has led to critical acclaim and some acting gongs.
Cementing his success, he landed the role of Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games movie. Typical of the actor’s dedication to his craft, he made sure he read all the books. He loved reading them so much he insisted he couldn’t put them down and has now made his entire family read them! Harrelson has never appeared in a sequel before, and he’s now signed on for four movies.
He told MTV: ‘I was interested because I knew Gary Ross was doing it. I love Gary; I think he’s a great director and such an amazing guy. I didn’t know about the books until after they offered me the part, and I took a while to respond. But then I started reading the first book and I really liked it. But, I thought about it and I just didn’t think there was enough to do, it wasn’t a huge part or anything. I’m happy to do smaller parts – I don’t have a problem with that – but it just didn’t seem like there was enough to do. I turned it down, but then Gary called me and said: “Dude, you’ve got to do this. I don’t have a second choice. You’ve got to play Haymitch.” And I was like: “Well, when you put it that way… let’s do this damn thing!” And I’m so glad that I did, because it really was one of the best experiences and just a great group.’
Haymitch is a popular character in the series, and Harrelson was desperate that his performance had the same impact. He told the LA Times: ‘It was my objective to give the character as much comedy as I could without it seeming not to fit, I tried to take a certain comedic aspect and give a sense, through that, that he’s been through a lot and is anaesthetizing himself as a result of that.
‘I didn’t want it to feel like just because he’s an alcoholic that he would look just like any bum on the street. So there are things that go against your expectation of what a washed-up guy would look like.’
Getting Haymitch’s distinctive look came easy for the actor – he based it on his brother’s hair. And by the end of the filming the first film, he seemed excited about being part of it. He may have had years of screen experience, but working on The Hunger Games seemed like a fulfilling experience for him. He told Empire: ‘The sets are incredible, just amazing! Sometimes you don’t notice the hair and make-up as much in a movie because it kind of blends in, but particularly in the Capitol there were some wild concepts. Pretty much every aspect of this production had the best people in the business, and it was just a pleasure to see what they came up with.’
Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss in The Hunger Games, daughter to an absent father and an equally absent mother, forced to look after her younger sibling as they face starvation in the poverty stricken land. If you replace sibling with siblings you also have her career-making performance in Winter’s Bone.
Directed by Debra Granik, it tells the story of a teenage girl named Ree who goes in the search for her drug dealer father after she learns he’s jumped bail – an action that could cost them the house that he put up as collateral. John Hawkes plays Ree’s uncle and he gives a sensational performance, matched easily by Lawrence. She is compelling as a young woman forced to make harrowing decisions for the good of her family. It is a performance this is packed full of both toughness and vulnerability.
Granik herself had been hailed as one to watch thanks to her blistering film debut Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga. As soon as she read Daniel Woodrell’s book she knew it was perfect material for a film.
Talking to Cinema Review, the film’s director said: ‘I read Winter’s Bone in one sitting. I had not done that with any book in a long time. I wanted to see how this girl, Ree, was going to survive. It felt like an old fashioned type of tale, with a character I couldn’t help but root for, and with an atmosphere my mind was actively trying to conjure. It also felt fresh in that I do not often get a chance to imagine life like Ree’s, whose circumstances lie outside the confines of my own.
‘To launch this project, Anne Rosellini, the producer, and I met with Daniel Woodrell in his home base in Southern Missouri and embarked on our first scout with him. We looked at creeks, caves, and homes of all kinds. We photographed yards, roads, and woods. Katie Woodrell, Daniel’s wife, arranged for us to meet singers, storytellers, folklorists, and all manner of scholars and practitioners steeped in Ozark culture – past and present. Also, we had an informative and heartbreaking discussion with the sheriff about what the meth problem has been like over the last two decades. After this visit, we were very enthused. We had also learned that to move forward we would need a guide, a local person who could carefully and respectfully introduce us to a community that might, over time, be persuaded to work with us.’
Granik looked at several young actresses, but none looked right for the material. They all looked too pretty and made up, and definitely didn’t look like they had spent a long time in hard labour, fending on scraps. She needed to look attractive, but believable as a girl that has spent time raising a family almost on her own.
Lawrence said: ‘I loved it right away. I thought it was the best female role I ever read. I was fascinated with Ree and the story. And once I saw Down to the Bone I realised exactly how Debra wanted to shoot it, how real it was going to be and how kind of unrelenting. I knew it would be incredible.’
Granik said about Lawrence: ‘Jen took this role into her heart and worked very hard to enter Ree’s world. She used what she’s got from her Kentucky roots – family that could help her with hunting, wood chopping, and other skills she wanted to have for the shoot. And to my ear, she already had a beautiful way of pronouncing American English that seemed right for Ree. Though the script had some very foreign phrases for us, Jen was familiar with some of them, having heard similar phrasing growing up. When she arrived in Missouri before the shoot, she worked closely with the life models and the family on whose property we shot the film. She learned how to operate the equipment, learned all the dog’s names, and bonded with their children. In her role, she plays an older sister to a boy and a girl. Jen developed her own way of working with the kids. She made things real for them. She could also improvise and rehearse with them to put them at ease. Jen is very invested in working with her fellow actors and crew, which means she is always learning, absorbing, and challenging herself. I feel very lucky that we had the chance to make this film together.’
The reviews were universally positive, with Hawkes and Lawrence receiving the lion’s share of praise.
Winter’s Bone changed her life. On one occasion Steven Spielberg once stopped her in a corridor at DreamWorks to check that she was the Jennifer Lawrence – so impressed he was about her role in the movie.
Granik wasn’t surprised, hailing: ‘I think she will have a lot of offers to be in a huge amount of films. I think that people will respond to the fact, first of all, that she’s had a very unusual early pathway, which is that she has not just been asked to play an attractive blonde. She has literally – in all the films she’s been in – been asked to use her mind as well and to show a fully fledged character.
‘So, if that can continue, that will be a very unusual trajectory. That will be much more like what happened to Jodie Foster, in the sense that Foster was enjoyed as someone who people could also rely on being a very intelligent person as well as, sometimes when she was young, endearing or cute or whatever.’
When asked about being hailed as the next big thing, Lawrence said: ‘I don’t know if there’s any way you can be ready for it. Fame hits people differently when it happens suddenly. Winter’s Bone could come out and I could have a nervous breakdown for all I know. But when people say that, I’m happy, it’s a compliment. I never have given value to myself or viewed myself differently through my work, through my job. It doesn’t give me a big head or anything. It just means I worked hard and it paid off. I’m grateful that people love the movie. But there were hundreds of people that went into making it, I’m just a tiny part.’