Woody Harrelson

Born on July 23, 1961 in the Texas town of Midland, Woodrow Tracy Harrelson grew up in Ohio. After his parents’ divorce, he had an unhappy childhood during which he was diagnosed with dyslexia and hyperactivity. His father was a professional assassin who belonged to a drug cartel. He spent most of his time in prison, until he was finally sentenced to life in prison in 1978 for murdering a federal judge. The boy went to live in Lebanon with his loving mother.

After graduating in performing arts and English at the University of Hanover (Indiana), Woody decided to try his luck on the New York stage. In the theater environment he met Nancy Simon, daughter of the famous author Neil Simon , with whom he married in 1985, but the union was disastrous. Within a year they had already divorced.

Around this time, Harrelson auditioned to replace the actor Nicholas Colasanto , who had just passed away, on Cheers , which was one of the most successful series of the moment. Not only was he cast, but despite Colasanto’s popularity, his character, the candid and funny waiter Woody Boyd, caused a sensation. He even won the Emmy for Best Supporting Comedy in 1989, among other awards.

While becoming extremely popular around the world for the series, Harrelson was dabbling in film, in movies like Wildcats , Doc Hollywood and White Guys Don’t Know Me . But it was when the series ended, in 1993, when Woody seriously considered succeeding in the cinema, not an easy task, since at that time only a specific actor, like Bruce Willis , had achieved it . Woody was extremely lucky, because his career benefited from the inordinate success of An Indecent Proposal , very watered down, but with a starting point that gave much to talk about: Would you sleep with a stranger for a million dollars?

After Learning to Live and New York Cowboys , another of his films also caused some controversy, Born Killers , due to its violence. Oliver Stone directed this film, based on a script by Quentin Tarantino , about a couple of psychopathic lovers: Micky and Mallory (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis ).

In case it had not been clear that his specialty is controversies, Woody Harrelson also starred in Milos Forman ‘s Manichaean The Larry Flint Scandal , with Oliver Stone as producer, where he played a famous editor of pornographic magazines. For this role he was nominated for an Oscar for best actor.

In real life, Harrelson champions dubious causes like marijuana legalization, is a vegan, and belongs to Amnesty International and a society called the Sigma Chi Fraternity. As a champion of the environmental movement, he scaled San Francisco’s Golden Gate to unfurl a banner in defense of the redwoods. He has been romantically involved with celebrities including Glenn Close , Brooke Shields , and Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Frank Zapa.

Since 2008 he has been married to Laura Loui, his assistant at the company Yoganics, dedicated to the distribution of organic food. He has had 3 children with her.

The truth is that Harrelson has been in films of great interest, such as Smokescreen , Welcome to Sarajevo and The Thin Red Line – where his appearance was brief. But he’s also starred in low-key films like the overrated Couple of Idiots , and big flops like the vocationally provocative EdTV , Stephen Frears ‘s flop western Hi-Lo Country , or the sports hodgepodge Playing Hard .

It can be said that in the last decade, Harrelson was in the doldrums, because although he has appeared in titles such as Aggressive Executive , The Big Coup , The Winner , Transsiberian , Battle in Seattle or The Last Show , luck was not with him, and he was not achieved great success. He took it out on the Coen brothers’ vigorous No Country for Old Men , even though he had a very minor character. Since then he has gone to the first division, as he did a great job playing a blind man in Siete almas ; he has also been an enlightened man who predicts the disaster in 2012, and a violent zombie hunter obsessed with ‘twinkies’ in Welcome to Zombieland .