The “certified genius” Woody Harrelson will never say no to: “I’ll do anything he asks”
Not every actor is lucky enough to find themselves a directorial muse, which doesn’t necessarily mean that every actor is desperate to find the Martin Scorsese to their Robert De Niro. Woody Harrelson wants to, though, after declaring that there’s one filmmaker he’ll never, ever turn down.
Apart from the time he did exactly that, right enough, which might have something to do with his insistence. The first time the writer and director in question offered him a part, he knocked it back, and ever since then, he’s been adamant that whatever the role, whatever the project, he’s in.
Despite having almost 40 years of big-screen experience under his belt, Harrelson hasn’t roped in too many recurring collaborators behind the camera. It looked like that spot was Oren Moverman’s for a while, but despite their initial shared enthusiasm to keep working together forever, their partnership fell off.
Did that leave the Cheers alum so devastated that he began scouring the trades and the streets of Tinseltown to find a replacement? Probably not, but it’s nothing if not coincidental that he ran directly into the embrace of another up-and-coming auteur shortly after Moverman’s Rampart was released in 2011.
Even though he was an esteemed, acclaimed, and established playwright, Martin McDonagh was still something of a newcomer to cinema at the time. His debut feature, In Bruges, showed that he had the potential to take to the movie business like a duck to water, and Harrelson wanted in.
Unfortunately, their would-be symbiosis didn’t get off to the best start after he rejected the chance to star in the 2003 Broadway run of McDonagh’s play, The Pillowman. However, when he finally got the chance to work under him on Seven Psychopaths nine years later, Harrelson was adamant that he was in for the long haul.
“I think he’s a certified genius, and I thought so when I read his plays,” he told The National. “He said to me, ‘You know, you don’t have to do every movie I offer just because you didn’t do Pillowman‘. I didn’t do that play with him like a fool. Now I say, ‘Oh, I’m doing everything you offer me’. He says, ‘But you don’t know if it’s going to be shit’. I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m doing it.'”
McDonagh even joked that he’d put Harrelson’s determination to the test, suggesting that he was “going to give you a shit thing, just to see if you want to do it,” but he wouldn’t bite. “It’s Martin McDonagh,” the actor added. “That’s not possible. That’s why I can safely say I’ll do anything he asks me to.”
How have things panned out so far? Alright, really. They were reunited for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which got Harrelson on the Academy Awards shortlist for ‘Best Supporting Actor’… and that’s it. Obviously, he wasn’t Irish enough to be cast in The Banshees of Inisherin, but he’s not in McDonagh’s upcoming Wild Horse Nine, either, so it hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.
