Woody Harrelson Biography

Woody Harrelson

Actor whose talent for playing the simple-minded bartender Woody Boyd in Cheers (1985–93) masked his capability for taking on deeper, more complex characters. Though Harrelson has made successful comedies, such as White Men Can't Jump (1992), his true calling seems to be for serious roles with hard-bitten characters such as those he portrayed in Natural Born Killers (1994) and his Oscar-nominated performance as the title character in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Harrelson's upbringing may explain this darker side (his father is a convicted murderer), but he is widely considered a talented actor who makes his share of clunkers, such as The Cowboy Way (1994), and winners, such as Indecent Proposal (1993) and Wag the Dog (1997) and appeared in EDtv (1999). In 1999 he starred in the Broadway revival of The Rainmaker.