The Other Woody

'I'm not naïve, I'm superficial,' Woody Harrelson declares in Paul Schrader's new film, The Walker.

Some people would suggest the actor has it the wrong way round. After all, he first planted himself in the public eye playing the dumbest jock on television in eight seasons of the sitcom Cheers.

I've met Harrelson twice. The first time he was promoting Natural Born Killers, and I was impressed with how honestly he discussed his own anger issues. He talked about Jung and the need to explore your own shadow. He admitted to having been in a lot of fights ('More than Muhammad Ali, probably'), described how he started a brawl with a bouncer at the Cannes Film Festival and how he had punched the wall recently in frustration with a wardrobe girl over nothing more significant than a shirt. His own father was serving life imprisonment for murder- Charles Harrelson was a contract killer - so this was no easy role for him.

Three years earlier he had vowed no more fights after getting into a scrape over a basketball game. He had worked at suppressing his anger. To play Mickey Knox he had to let that control go again.

Was it a useful experience for him? 'Useful? I think it's imperative. If you're going to get down to who you are, you have to confront your demons. But I couldn't just shake it off afterwards; it's something I am still dealing with.'

Good as his word, at the same time as he fielded these questions he was working through his yoga exercises.

The second time I saw him in the flesh was a couple of years later, on a hill overlooking Sarajevo in 1996. For his film Welcome to Sarajevo director Michael Winterbottom was restaging the incident when a cellist defied the snipers to play an open-air concert over the city. As the rain began to fall, there was Harrelson, hunkering down to share his umbrella with a couple of kids who had been pulling on his shoelaces for an autograph. Even to Bosnian ten-year-olds he was Woody from Cheers. Genial and approachable, he told me he was just proud to be part of the movie, and why not? There was no other reason for him to be there.

He was good in it too, playing a cavalier CNN correspondent called Flynn. ITN's Michael Nicholson told me the character was a myth - 'The Americans didn't cover themselves in glory covering that war'. All the same, he admitted, 'Flynn's my favourite character.' Even bone fide war correspondents aren't immune to a spot of movie star charisma.

And Harrelson was a pretty big star at the time, successfully straddling screens large and small with box office hits like White Men Can't Jump and Indecent Proposal. He even earned an Oscar nomination with his wickedly ebullient portrayal of an unapologetic pornographer in The People Vs Larry Flynt (1996).

What's unusual about this career is the apparent lack of vanity. It's one thing to play the chump opposite Robert Redford and Demi Moore at the outset of your career, but Harrelson has been content to share the spotlight repeatedly over the years, often with actors who might normally be counted lower down the pecking order: Randy Quaid (Kingpin), Billy Crudup (The Hi-Lo Country), Matthew McConaughey (Edtv), Antonio Banderas (Play it to the Bone), and Pierce Brosnan (After The Sunset).

He accepted a recurring featured role in Will & Grace, and has come to specialize in choice supporting turns in laudable projects like North Country, A Prairie Home Companion, A Scanner Darkly and the Coen brothers' forthcoming No Country For Old Men.

Do filmmakers question his ability to carry a film on his own back, or is it just that Harrelson's less stuck on the idea of playing the lone hero?

It seems to me he has his priorities straight. He courted controversy at home by speaking out against big corporations (what his website, www.voiceyourself.com calls 'The Beast'), and he found himself in court for planning marijuana seeds in Kentucky. It was a symbolic gesture from one of America's leading hemp advocates, and the jury let him walk. He protested the invasion of Iraq from the first. And he's a Raw Vegan, which means his diet is largely unprocessed, uncooked organic fruit and veg. Such commitment isn't to everyone's taste, obviously, but superficial he's not. Perhaps Harrelson is naïve to believe that individual choices can make a difference and help save the planet… but let's hope not.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com