First published online by Simon Hattenstone.
I’m not looking forward to meeting Woody Harrelson. I’m a bit scared, to be honest. I’ve just seen Rampart, his new movie in which he plays a racist, psychopathic police officer. Harrelson is terrifying in it. Terrifying when he’s chasing villains, bullying juniors, beating the crap out of innocents, stalking the mothers of his children. He’s even terrifying when he’s making love. His body, specially slimmed-down and muscled-up for the part, pulses with a tension permanently on the cusp of violence.
It’s not as if this is a one-off – there’s his sickening Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers (“At birth, I was cast into a flaming pit of scum”), deranged killer Tallahassee in Zombieland, Charlie in the forthcoming Seven Psychopaths whose title says it all, and we’ve barely started. Even when he plays it nice, like he did in Cheers all those years ago as dopey bartender Woody, there’s something in the goofy smile that makes you worry – for his sanity, and your safety. And it’s not as if the weird stuff is just confined to acting – there are numerous stories of him hitting photographers or police officers or taxi doors.
