Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson has built a career on an unusually productive tension: he can seem relaxed and unpredictable at once, equally comfortable playing the friendly presence in the room or the man most likely to unsettle it. Born Woodrow Tracy Harrelson on July 23, 1961, in Midland, Texas, he studied theater and English at Hanover College before finding his defining early role on television. Harrelson joined Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd in 1985 and remained through the sitcom’s final eight seasons. The performance earned him five Emmy nominations and a win in 1989, but it did not confine him to television comedy. He began his film career with Wildcats in 1986, later reuniting with Wesley Snipes for White Men Can’t Jump and Money Train. Roles in Indecent Proposal and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers demonstrated how quickly he could move from accessible romantic drama to something far more volatile. That range became the shape of his career. Harrelson has worked across comedy, drama, crime, science fiction and large-scale franchise filmmaking. He played Haymitch Abernathy throughout The Hunger Games series, appeared as Tobias Beckett in Solo: A Star Wars Story and portrayed the Colonel in War for the Planet of the Apes. In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, his performance as police chief Bill Willoughby brought an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Television has remained an important part of his work. He played political strategist Steve Schmidt in Game Change and starred opposite Matthew McConaughey as detective Marty Hart in the first season of True Detective, receiving Emmy nominations for both performances. Harrelson has also moved behind the camera as a writer, director and producer. His 2017 film Lost in London, which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in, was shot in a single take and premiered live. It is a fitting example of the curiosity running through his career: familiar screen confidence paired with a continuing willingness to try something difficult.