Woody Harrelson spent eight years as the amiable bartender on Cheers, which is a difficult thing to escape, and then took Natural Born Killers and White Men Can’t Jump in quick succession.
The People vs Larry Flynt earned his first nomination, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri his third, playing a dying sheriff whose kindness is the film’s moral anchor.
No Country for Old Men, Zombieland and True Detective show the range, and he is very funny when a film lets him be.
He is a longstanding political activist, was raised partly by a mother whose husband was a contract killer, and has been open about both.