The Only Movie Woody Harrelson Couldn't Handle Watching
Woody Harrelson has always been blunt about his work — and when he doesn't like something, he says so.
Case in point: Rampart (2011), a gritty crime drama he made with director Oren Moverman, who'd previously directed him in The Messenger. That film earned Harrelson an Oscar nomination and cemented a strong creative bond between the two — one Harrelson described as "the kind of friendship only death can separate."
But that bond got tested when Harrelson sat down to watch an early cut of Rampart. Moverman warned him it was far from finished — only four months into editing — and that the film had changed drastically from the script. Several scenes had been cut, characters removed, and a lot of the material Harrelson expected to see was gone.
Harrelson didn't take it well. According to Moverman, "he walked away really, really upset and really unsure of what happened to what we shot."
The actor admitted later he "didn't go for" the early version and hadn't expected the final film to deviate so much from what they'd shot on set. He also admitted he wouldn't have been able to publicly support the movie if that reaction hadn't changed.
Eventually, months later, Harrelson watched the final cut — and did a complete 180.
After the screening, he told Moverman, "It takes a big man to admit that he was wrong. Will you be able to forgive me?"
The film itself was polarizing, but Harrelson's performance earned praise, and their working relationship survived the rough patch. Still, it remains one of the rare cases where an actor was completely blindsided by the edit — and nearly walked away from a film he'd put everything into.