While some actors remain huge media fixtures while accomplishing great strides as actors, Woody Harrelson is that rare breed of actor who has had a lowered profile, yet continuously made huge strides as an actor in his career.
Most people still identify Harrelson the most with his role as bartender Woody Boyle in the now classic sitcom Cheers. Despite achieving early success in big roles in films like White Men Can’t Jump, Natural Born Killers, and Money Train, he has continued to make strides in supporting roles in Oscar-winning fare like The Thin Red Line and No Country For Old Men, as well as less successful fare like Semi-Pro and Seven Pounds.
But now the 48-year old actor’s latest film is his most action-packed in years as gun-toting zombie assassin Tallahassee in the horror/comedy film Zombieland. We first asked Woody what motivated him to choose a film that on its face seems so left-field.
“Well, I think that the script and the director are the two key things,” Harrelson believes, “You got to have a great script to start, which we did with this and we had a first-time feature director, Reuben [Fleischer], which we didn’t know. I thought this was an independent drama, otherwise I never would have done it. Reuben convinced me! It was a real question mark and luckily, I think we hit it out of the park.”
We asked Harrelson whether doing the film had anything to do with his passion for ecological issues.
“I don’t know if zombies are ecological, because they pretty much eating humans that are causing the ecological damage,” Woody replies, “So, in fact, when you think about it, it’s better for the overall environment if zombies are overrunning the Earth.”
However, despite seizing on the opportunity to play a gun-toting action man, Harrelson claims there was little physical training required.
“They made me wander relentlessly looking around for Twinkies,” Woody reveals, “That’s also good cardio if you’re doing it quickly. We do all our own stunts, unless their dangerous, of course, so we didn’t do any physically taxing stunts.”
However, Woody claims he has little passion for Hostess cake products that Tallahassee does for Twinkies in Zombieland.
“Actually, ironically, zero,” he reveals, “I don’t take sugar, I don’t take dairy, so that pretty much eliminates all that from my diet, from my little regimen.”
Then if it wasn’t a Twinkie, then what exactly did Harrelson eat on screen?
“That was a fake,” Woody says, “Looked like a Twinkie. It was mostly cornmeal and they had some other yummy stuff in there. That’s a movie mystery. I’m sorry, Reuben, I’m not going to do it again. I have a feeling Reuben is admonishing me, giving me the little stink eye, ‘Don’t mention anything about the Twinkie!’ So I’m sorry.”
Upon viewing Zombieland, we noticed the comic tone gave it some similarities with the offbeat British zombie spoof film Shaun Of The Dead, a film which Harrelson loves, but says has very little in common with his film.
“I think Shaun Of The Dead is a great, funny movie,” Woody points out, “But the similarities is that it’s kind of a world with zombies. And I don’t really see the other similarities other than being a comedy as well, but I do like that movie. It’s cool.”
However, despite Woody’s love for Shaun Of The Dead, he says he has little stomach for the horror genre in general.
“Horror, I don’t really watch them,” Harrelson admits, “But I did think that 28 Days Later was incredible. I couldn’t sleep for a long time, so it was effective, but I don’t usually watch horror films because I get spooked. I usually watch that one because it was Danny Boyle.”
Even William Friedkin’s classic The Exorcist, Harrelson says, is too much for him.
“Nope, no way, never watching that girl’s head getting twisted around, just Shaun Of The Dead,” Woody remarks.
Woody had his own theory though on why he thinks zombies have always managed to maintain a special place in American pop culture.
“I think we all know where we’re headed as a society,” Harrelson believes, “I think we can see the future, writing’s on the wall.”
We asked Harrelson if his real persona is more sweet or badass compared to the characters onscreen that generally fall into either category.
“Kind of a sweet, bad…” he replies, as he thinks about
Harrelson was soon interjected with an adjective given to us by co-star Jesse Eisenberg, who describes the actor as a “sweetass”.
“Yeah, a sweetass, thank you, Jesse, neither was a way to mix those two terms,” Woody answers, “No, but I think I’m a pacifist. I really don’t like killing zombies, otherwise I’d have a heyday the last eight years. No, I’m really a peace-able guy. I just hang out in my bathing suit in Maui and just spend a lot of time in the ocean with my kids and stuff, so, geez, I don’t know.”
Woody had this to say when asked about how he enjoyed working with Eisenberg, who heightened his profile earlier this year with the critically-acclaimed comedy Adventureland.
“On screen, I’m always vying for attention when it’s his close-up,” Harrelson claims, “Very eloquent person, I might say. He did it about twenty times that voiceover and I think Mike White did a rewrite on that.”
However, Harrelson revealed to us that Jesse is so scrutinizing of his own performances onscreen that he had to be pushed into going to the film’s premiere.
“In Miami, I had to beg him to come see the movie because he just didn’t want to watch,” Woody reveals, “He gets highly self-critical when he watches himself onscreen, but he loved it. He even can put his reaction on the poster. ‘90 Minutes Of Pure Fun’ - Jesse Eisenberg, the byline.”
Woody also reveals that he, Eisenberg, and the rest of the film’s cast improvised a lot of the dialogue during the shoot.
“Let’s go back on script for this,” he says, “Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone are extraordinary. I got to say that even during the first when [Jesse] was auditioning, he was improvising during the audition, which I was excited about.”
“I thought it was like really funny stuff right off the bat, so when we finally got to shooting it, it was really cool,” Harrelson adds, They really let us improvise. I don’t know how they covered it, but they did somehow, they covered most of [Jesse’s.]”
We asked Harrelson about the possibility of a sequel being made to Zombieland.
“It’s best to ask Reuben,” Woody replies, “I think he’s locked down, eight or nine movies he’s got now. He’s doing a Will Ferrell movie next, I don’t know, all the great comedians.”
“He started off kind of low-level, now he’s just…But I think the key thing for when they want to do a sequel is if the movie is successful,” he continues, “And since this movie hasn’t even opened yet, I don’t know if they are going to talk about a sequel yet. This is it, man.”
We asked Woody then if a television show was considerable, since the script was originally designed as a television pilot.
“We could do it as a television show, too,” Harrelson believes, “They still have those episodes.”
Harrelson’s hope for both a sequel and television show underlies the optimism he has for Zombieland.
“I think audiences should check it out if they indeed like to laugh and have a good time. But I think it’s going to be a good ride,” Woody enthuses.
However, co-star Jesse Eisenberg’s ‘no nihilists’ remark is pointed out.
“No nihilists. People who feel bad. That’s wrong,” Harrelson says.
In replying to Harrelson’s remark that the previous administration, ran by George W. Bush, was “zombie-like”, we asked him if he felt the one of current President Barack Obama has reached that level yet.
“I feel a little hope with Obama because he feels like he’s a man of integrity,” Woody says, “Whether or not he’s going to be able to get out from under the push-and-pull of corporate America is something that remains to be seen. That’s something I’m not sure politicians are even capable of, but we’ll see.”
Finally, we asked Woody what he feels would be the ideal benefit of having zombies overrun and completely shut down all functioning society.
“You could get into that necrophilia thing [Jesse] was talking about,” Harrelson says, “That’s the first thing that comes to mind. [Jesse] would probably do something with his mom.”
