The movie that swore Woody Harrelson off a life of violence: “I’m never fighting again”
To most people, the name Woody Harrelson conjures an image of one of Hollywood’s most laidback, laconic stars. However, Harrelson hasn’t always been that kind of guy. The actor has been remarkably open and honest about how his dysfunctional upbringing led to him being an angry young man, and even when he became a famous name, he still ran afoul of the law on several occasions. One of his worst habits in his early days of stardom was a propensity for getting into fights – although he realised the error of his ways while filming a movie and swore to never raise a fist again.
Harrelson once admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that when he looks back on his escapades as a young man, he can’t help thinking, “That guy is an asshole.” He also acknowledges that his childhood didn’t exactly give him the tools to cope with normal life, let alone life as a famous actor. The star was born in Midland, Texas, to a religious mother and a father who was rarely around, even before he was convicted for the contract killing of a federal judge and sentenced to life in prison. Naturally, this meant Harrelson rarely saw his dad as he was growing up. However, he still has conflicted feelings about his father, admitting, “He wasn’t a great dad, and he did a lot wrong, but I’m still in many ways quite proud of him.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harrelson had emotional issues as a child – so much so that he was kicked out of both nursery school and first grade. He claimed to Esquire that a teacher physically disciplined him for stealing a purse, which he didn’t do, and this only heightened the rage he felt. “So, I went around the school breaking windows with my bare fists,” he confessed. After that, he was sent to a private school in Houston that catered to kids with learning difficulties and special needs. “The idea there was to educate and simultaneously give love to the child, which sounds hokey, but it worked,” he explained. “I’d do something that was wrong or violent, and they’d treat me with love.”
By the time Harrelson came of age and started making headway in Hollywood, though, that rage was still festering. “I used to fight a lot,” he acknowledged. “I used to go to bars and fight the guys I thought were bullies. I’ve got scars everywhere.” Harrelson got in so many brawls during his early years on Cheers, in fact, that he developed a reputation as a hot head. However, in 1990, after five years on the show, he finally had an epiphany – and it came while hanging upside down in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out brawl.
“My last few fights were pretty ugly,” Harrelson told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “I quit during the filming of Doc Hollywood.” That 1991 movie was shot in late 1990 in Gainesville, and Harrelson often played basketball on his off time. This, of course, came in handy when he was cast the following year in White Men Can’t Jump, but at that time, he was too distracted by a big guy on the court who squared up to him.
“He was in my face yelling at me and I shoved him,” Harrelson remembered. “He just picked me up and spun me around so my head was upside down. I was, like, holding onto his thigh, and it was while I was holding onto that tree trunk of a thigh, knowing that I was about to take a few lumps, that I said, ‘I am done with this. I’m never fighting again.'”
Ultimately, after Harrelson finally realised getting in fights for no reason wasn’t good for his health, he embraced spirituality and gave up his wild lifestyle. “I was a nocturnal animal who liked to party,” he explained. “My life was shallow.” However, after realising the answer to his emotional problems wasn’t hard drugs, partying, and fighting, he became a vegetarian, restricted his drug use to weed, sold his Corvette, and started doing yoga.
