The actor Woody Harrelson compared to Marlon Brando and James Dean: “Just the intensity”
In 2009, Woody Harrelson received his second Oscar nomination for his searing performance in Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. That drama made little impact at the box office, but anyone who saw its harrowing depiction of the lives of US Army casualty notification officers would have needed to be made of stone not to be affected by it. In truth, though, while Harrelson’s performance was the one that earned a nomination, the beloved actor felt his co-star in the film deserved much more recognition. In fact, he compared him to a young Marlon Brando and James Dean because of the intensity and bravery of his captivating turn.
Indeed, the actor in question has made a career out of playing intense, charismatic, and often violent men. After bursting onto the scene with a lead role in the 2001 teen comedy Get Over It, he began to stretch his dramatic muscles with a 22-episode stint on HBO’s Six Feet Under. Before long, a succession of incendiary supporting performances in movies like Hostage, 3:10 To Yuma, 30 Days of Night, and Alpha Dog marked him as one of Hollywood’s best young psychos.
However, when Ben Foster was cast as Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery in The Messenger, he took his first stab at a more nuanced leading turn. As Harrelson put it to Movieline, “I think this might be his first full-on movie.” For his part, Foster was excited at the opportunity to share the screen with Harrelson, someone he had been a massive fan of for years. He told Hollywood Chicago, “They say never meet your heroes. But it’s one of those rare love affairs. I’m so – I don’t want to say proud, it’s not the right word – blown away to work with him as he’s working on such a deep level.”
Foster felt blessed that Harrelson chose to make a movie like The Messenger with him because, at that time, he wasn’t starring in serious dramatic work too often. After all, in the few years surrounding the film, Harrelson had made audiences laugh in Semi-Pro and Zombieland and also had a ball in Roland Emmerich’s preposterous disaster flick 2012. However, Foster noted that when Harrelson commits to something like The Messenger, “he really swings.”
To Harrelson’s delight, though, he quickly found out he was in the trenches with a young actor the likes of which he had rarely come across. The Natural Born Killers star marvelled, “He’s kind of known but hasn’t popped into wide consciousness in our culture. This performance is one of the most staggeringly beautiful, eloquent performances that I’ve seen in a long time.”
Harrelson went one further than simply gushing about Foster’s acting chops, though. When asked what it was like to work with a young star with such talent, he stated, “It was like working with a young Brando or a young Jimmy Dean, just the intensity. It’s a brave performance, and I’m fucking psyched to be part of this movie.”
While it wouldn’t entirely be accurate to say that Foster went on to enjoy a career like Brando’s after the release of The Messenger, he has become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after character actors. Audiences who are fans of his brand of potent ferocity and deep vulnerability have seen him excel in the likes of Hell or High Water, Lone Survivor, The Program, and Leave No Trace.
When asked why he is so often drawn to the kind of intense roles that Brando loved playing, he told The Detroit News, “I guess what I’m drawn to is the outlier. It’s not like I’m going out and looking for the wild card. I suppose it’s similar to musical taste: you like certain things, and you’re drawn to them. You know it when you hear it, and I know it when I read it.”
Fittingly, Foster played one of his best “outlier” roles on stage in London’s West End in 2014. He was one of many actors to try his hand at inhabiting the animalistic power of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire—the very role made famous by Brando on stage and in the classic 1951 film version of Tennessee Williams’ classic play.
