Hindustan Times (Patna) - Hindustan Times (Patna) - Live
HARRELSON HAD TURNED DOWN ROLE IN SOLO
Actor Woody Harrelson, who has been delivering nuanced performances in films including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and LBJ, has a reputation as Hollywood’s haute hippie. And it’s well deserved. He wore a white Armani tuxedo made of hemp to the 1997 Golden Globes, weaves references to Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi into casual conversation, and says he spent only $500 on his 2008 wedding to Louie, with whom he has been together since the 1980s. (They have three children: Deni, 25; Zoe, 21; and Makani, 12.)
So how did an astral voyager manage to claw his way to the top of a cutthroat business? Harrelson seems unsure himself. “I’m a good little worker, a hard worker,” he says. “But I’m also a worldclass lollygagger. I really would prefer nutso (Woody-ese for doing nothing) to do.” If that’s his ultimate goal, his life of late is a dismal failure. This year, the 56-year-old lollygagged his way to a best supporting actor Oscar nod for Billboards.
Now, he’s seen in Ron Howard’s new film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, alongside Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke and Donald Glover. Harrelson plays Tobias Beckett, a grizzled interstellar bandit who adopts the young Han Solo into his outlaw crew. When he was offered the role, he said, “I was kind of psyched, like, ‘Oh, geez, this is really cool, be in a Star Wars movie.’ Unexpected.” But he turned it down.
He might not have accepted if it were not for the film’s producer, Allison Shearmur, who also produced the Hunger Games films he starred in. “It’s sad Alli Shearmur died,” he said, referring to the producer’s death from lung cancer in January at age 54. “That really broke my heart… She was the one. I turned down Hunger Games twice. She wouldn’t take ‘no’. I turned this one down. She wouldn’t take ‘no’.” However, once Harrelson was on the film’s set, he had no problem connecting to his character. And that we’re sure of.