“I thought it was terrible”: the Woody Harrelson movie that left him depressed beyond words
There is no shortage of occasions when actors have been critical of their own performances, but that usually doesn’t happen until after the movie in question has been released. Woody Harrelson couldn’t wait, though, and voiced his staunch opposition to a film long before it premiered in cinemas.
The star is known for being laconic, easygoing, and all-around affable. When he’d collaborated with the director before, a creative shorthand was even in place. And yet, when Harrelson saw the first cut, he was left borderline miserable by what he found.
Oren Moverman made his feature-length debut behind the camera on 2009’s The Messenger, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’, and Harrelson a nod for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. Naturally, they sought to re-team immediately after their moving war drama.
Bumped up to lead status second time around, Harrelson headlined Moverman’s Rampart, which follows a veteran cop who finds his rough tactics called into question when the police in Los Angeles were under a harsher spotlight than they’d been in years due to the fallout from the titular corruption scandal of the late 1990s.
His performance was an excellent one, but as Harrelson revealed to Fade In, he was so dissatisfied with the finished product that his friendship with Moverman was at stake. “I thought it was terrible,” he admitted. “I was depressed, depressed beyond words. Because one thing I knew for certain when I was shooting this movie was, this is a great movie. I’d have bet anybody. I knew it was a great movie.”
That early confidence was blown apart when Rampart emerged on the other side of post-production, causing tensions between its two creative figureheads. “So therein began a period of time when there was real difficulty between me and Oren,” he admitted. “I almost want to look up all these emails because there were times when he was like, ‘Dude, we can’t sacrifice our friendship over this.'”
Harrelson described that period as “a really traumatic time because I loved that movie so much,” only to be left severely disenchanted by what ended up on the screen. Thanks in part to his disappointment with Rampart, he was incredulous when he heard it had been accepted to screen in competition at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Offering a blunt assessment of the movie’s merits, Harrelson questioned if the people who’d welcomed Rampart on the festival circuit were “out of their fucking mind” for enjoying something he held such deep-seated dislike for. His friendship with Moverman may not have been completely sacrificed as a result, but at the same time, it might not be a coincidence that he starred in both of the filmmaker’s first two features and none of the ones he’s made since.
