Woody Harrelson

26 Nov 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Thu, 26 Nov 2009

Seven Pounds (Woody Harrelson as Ezra )

9:00 PM ET | Starz Edge

9:00 PM ET | STARZ EDGE HD

Fri, 27 Nov 2009

No Country for Old Men (Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells )

2:05 AM ET | Starz In Black

2:40 PM ET | Starz In Black

5:05 AM ET | STARZ IN BLACK PST

5:40 PM ET | STARZ IN BLACK PST

Seven Pounds (Woody Harrelson as Ezra )

3:35 PM ET | Starz Edge

3:35 PM ET | STARZ EDGE HD

6:15 AM ET | Starz Edge

6:15 AM ET | STARZ EDGE HD

6:35 PM ET | STARZ EDGE HD PST

6:35 PM ET | STARZ EDGE PST

9:15 AM ET | STARZ EDGE HD PST

9:15 AM ET | STARZ EDGE PST

12:00 AM ET | STARZ EDGE HD PST

12:00 AM ET | STARZ EDGE PST

Woody Harrelson Talks The Messenger, 2012, and Defendor

RYAN GOWLAND — 13 Nov 2009 10:41:14 CDT

Woody Harrelson already scored a hit this year with Zombieland, but this weekend sees two more Harrelson movies open: 2012 and The Messenger. In 2012, Harrelson plays the conspiracy theorist and pirate radio host Charlie Frost, who is closer to Harrelson's own personality — a well-known environmental activist and a hemp-loving pacifist — than the role of Armycasualty-notification officer Capt. Tony Stone in writer-director Oren Moverman 's The Messenger. Harrelson told THR that playing a soldier changed his view on them entirely.

The one thing that my whole ideology lacked was the compassion for the soldier, and now that's been taken care of. I have a great deal of respect for these people who go over there and risk their lives every day for very little money just because of the love for their country, so I've come to really revere the soldier. I feel like the movie is really a journey you take with your heart, and my part of that journey began with going to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center]. It accessed places in my heart I wasn't necessarily expecting to access. It was important for me, because I'm definitively anti-war, pro-peace. I do think that supporting the troops is a lot bigger question than supporting the war.

The Messenger certainly puts Harrelson in more human peril than 2012, where he greatest enemy is a "giant chunk of magma," but Harrelson told Salon that despite how different the two movies are, his process for choosing projects was the same in both cases.

You know, I don't feel like a movie has to have a message, necessarily. If a movie's fun and funny and just great entertainment, that's enough.

"Fun and funny" seems to describe Harrelson's other upcoming movie, Defendor, which is yet to be given a release date by Sony.

It's a guy who's mildly retarded who thinks he's a superhero, only, of course, bullets don't bounce off and he gets beat up all the time. He's trying to fight crime and falls in love with the girl, played wonderfully by Kat Dennings, who's a crack whore. Peter Stebbings wrote and directed it; he's an actor. I was surprised how good it turned out, and luckily Sony thought so, too, because they picked it up (in Toronto).

Defendor might seem like an unusual choice for a different actor, but with Harrelson's varied resume, including soldiers, serial killers, conspiracy theorists, and pornography tycoons, playing a "mildly retarded superhero" isn't even a surprise.

ReelzChannel | Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson

Thu, 26 Nov 2009

Fri, 27 Nov 2009

Woody Harrelson Talks The Messenger, 2012, and Defendor