The actor Woody Harrelson called a classic “take-the-piss artist”
Woody Harrelson has worked with many great actors in his day, from Robert De Niro to Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman to Frances McDormand. Known for his laid-back persona and ability to play loveable and menacing characters, the actor got his breakthrough role in the sitcom Cheers before proving he could make it as a serious film actor as well. With ten Emmy nominations and three Oscar nominations, Harrelson quickly demonstrated that he could dominate both the small and big screen—even earning the praise of Golden Age screen icon Lauren Bacall, who was notoriously prickly with her co-stars.
With such a diverse career, Harrelson has had plenty of time to get to know some of the greatest actors around, but he had specific praise for his costar in the 2005 drama North Country and the 2008 drama Sleepwalking, Charlize Theron. “She’s a take-the-piss artist,” he said. “That’s one of the cool things about her.”
He added, “She’s kind of the classic broad. She can drink you under the table, but at the same time, she’s laser-focused.”
Director Paul Haggis, who worked with the South African actor on the 2007 crime drama In the Valley of Elah, added to Harrelson’s assessment. “She has this sex object image, and she’s incredibly beautiful, but she quickly disarms all that,” he said. “She makes you feel very comfortable. You just want to hang out with her. She has this Kate Hepburn quality: one of the guys, by which I mean a human being.”
Based on these comments, it appears that in life, as on the screen, Theron contains multitudes. Having started out as a model in Italy, she moved to Hollywood in her late teens to become an actor. From the beginning, she found ways to avoid being typecast, eschewing Hollywood glamour for meaty roles like the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster and the taciturn avenging warrior Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. This is despite the fact that her appearance is essentially the physical definition of a bombshell.
Theron’s Oscar nominations alone are a tidy encapsulation of her approach to her career. Monster, for which she won the ‘Best Actress’ award, saw her playing a sex worker-turned serial killer, a character based on a real person. In North Country, she played a single parent and mine worker who sues her employer for sexual harassment. And in Bombshell, she played Fox News anchor Megan Kelly during a turbulent period in the network’s history.
These and other roles have established Theron as one of the most forceful performers in the business, whether she’s taking down corporate lawyers or sucker-punching an assailant. Luckily for her collaborators, as Harrelson revealed, she is not a part of the Method Acting wing of the profession. No matter how intense the role, she is able to turn it off and get back to joking with the crew as soon as the director yells “cut.” A true professional.
