The Clint Eastwood movie Woody Harrelson turned down: “It wasn’t a very rewarding role”
Given his monolithic presence in Hollywood history, there aren’t many actors out there who’d actively turn down the opportunity to be in a Clint Eastwood movie, making Woody Harrelson one of the few.
Three decades after declining those overtures, they’ve still never worked together. With the legendary actor and filmmaker winding down his incomparable career, it looks like a once-in-a-lifetime chance slipped through Harrelson’s grasp.
Not just any Eastwood film, either, but a box office sensation that recouped its production budget more than nine times over at the box office, had audiences openly weeping in the aisles, showcased a new string to the leading man’s bow as both a performer and filmmaker, as well as one that co-starred one of the greatest actors of all time.
The part in question ended up being played by Victor Slezak, and it wouldn’t be offensive to say he hasn’t gone on to enjoy a career even remotely comparable to Harrelson’s. When filming kicked off in late 1994, the latter was hot off the headline-grabbing release of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers and was only months away from beginning shooting on The People vs. Larry Flynt.
That performance ended up landing him an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’, so Harrelson was well within his rights to think he deserved a better-written and more substantial role than what was on the table after the star regaled GQ with the tale of how he almost partnered up with Eastwood.
“It was Bridges of Madison County, but it was to be the couple in the present day, and it wasn’t really a very rewarding role,” he said. “And I didn’t really think that jumping back to the present was necessary. You know how when they say, ‘We’re going to have Meryl Streep in the past’ and the boring folks in the future? I didn’t want to do that.”
The chance to share the screen may have twisted his arm, but once he discovered he’d be embodying her grownup son in a timeline where her character had already died, he decided it wasn’t worth it. In fact, that contrivance is a bugbear for Harrelson in general.
“You see that in a lot of movies where they have people in the present, but the stories happen in the past, so why even bother? Why not just tell that story from the past and leave out the whole other time period?” he asked entirely rhetorically. “Because a lot of times, it’s like, ‘Fuck, I don’t want this, get me back to the other stuff.'”
There aren’t many folks who’d knock back a movie starring both Eastwood and Streep, but considering that had he signed on, he’d have never worked with the latter, and the former was only directing during his proposed scenes, Harrelson’s decision was completely justifiable.
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