Bio
Woody Harrelson is an American actor best known for his role as Woody Boyd in the television sitcom Cheers (1985-1993) and has also earned acclaim for his roles in films such as as Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt and The Thin Red Line.
He also had a starring role as Detective Martin Hart, the partner of Rust Cohle who is the more conservative of the pair and may not always understand Rust's methods but respects his partner's commitment to police work, in the crime drama anthology series True Detective.
Harrelson's portrayal of a casualty notification officer, opposite Ben Foster, in Oren Moverman's The Messenger, garnered him a 2010 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
He was previously nominated by the Academy, the Golden Globes and SAG Awards in the category of Best Actor for his portrayal of controversial magazine publisher Larry Flynt in Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt.
Harrelson was also seen in Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, in which he reprised his role as Haymitch Abernathy; and in writer/director Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace, starring opposite Christian Bale and Casey Affleck.
Harrelson also lent his voice to Relativity's animated film, Free Birds, with Owen Wilson.
In 2012 Harrelson starred opposite Julianne Moore and Ed Harris in the HBO film Game Change for director Jay Roach, for which he earned Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe nominations for his role as Steve Schmidt.
Harrelson was also seen in Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths, alongside Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrell and Christopher Walken; and in Gary Ross' blockbuster The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel by Suzanne Collins.
Other highlights from Harrelson's film career include Louis Leterrier's Now You See Me; Rampart, which reunited him with director Oren Moverman; Ruben Fleischer's box office hit Zombieland; Friends With Benefits; 2012; Semi-Pro; The Grand; No Country for Old Men; A Scanner Darkly; A Prairie Home Companion; Defendor; Seven Pounds; The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio; North Country; The Big White; After the Sunset; Play It to the Bone; Battle in Seattle; EDtv; The Hi-Lo County; Transsiberian; The Thin Red Line; Wag the Dog; Welcome to Sarajevo; Kingpin; Natural Born Killers; Indecent Proposal; White Men Can't Jump, and was the on screen host for director Pete McGrain's political documentary, Ethos.
Harrelson first endeared himself to millions of viewers as a member of the ensemble cast of NBC's long-running hit comedy, Cheers. For his work as the affable bartender Woody Boyd, he won an Emmy in 1988 and was nominated four additional times during his eight-year run on the show.
In 1999, he gained another Emmy nomination when he reprised the role in a guest appearance on the spin-off series Frasier. He later made a return to television with a recurring guest role on the hit NBC series, Will and Grace.
Balancing his film and television work, in 1999 Harrelson directed his own play, Furthest From the Sun, at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis.
He followed next with the Roundabout's Broadway revival of The Rainmaker; Sam Shepherd's The Late Henry Moss, and John Kolvenbach's On an Average Day, opposite Kyle MacLachlan at London's West End.
Harrelson directed the Toronto premiere of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth at Toronto's Berkeley Street Theatre. In the winter of 2005 he returned to London's West End, starring in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana at the Lyric Theatre.
In 2011, Harrelson co-wrote and directed the semi-autobiographical comedy Bullet for Adolf at Hart House Theatre in Toronto. In the summer of 2012, Bullet for Adolf made its Off-Broadway debut at New World Stages.