Stanley Tucci may not have gotten his own character poster for The Hunger Games, but Woody Harrelson did, and it provided the first look at his character Haymitch. Last night at the premiere of Rampart, we asked him how they came up with the character’s look, which includes a swoop of blond hair and a slight beard — or “a little scruff,” as Harrelson called it. “I saw my brother when I was trying to come up with the best look, and that’s my brother’s hair, you know. I mean, not literally,” he laughed, “but that’s his look. So yeah, I thought, That’s perfect.” (One other advantage Harrelson has over Tucci and his co-star Lenny Kravitz is that he’s actually read the entire Suzanne Collins series on which the franchise is based: “I really liked the books. I couldn’t put them down when I was reading them, and now my kids have read them, too, and everybody’s into it.”)
As for Harrelson’s current film, the cop drama Rampart, Harrelson had nothing but praise for his director Oren Moverman, who previously directed Harrelson to an Oscar nomination for The Messenger. “Well, I loved the material but, I mean, mainly I think Oren is a maestro. I think he’s one of the best directors I’ve ever seen, and I love working with him. You know, he has a real sensitivity and a unique vision.” Moverman put the actor through his paces in a lot of harrowing scenes, but we had to know, was Harrelson most worried about the screen moment where he licks the toes of his co-star, played by an uncredited Audra McDonald? “No trepidation,” he laughed. “Whatever Oren wants, I tend to do it.”
