{"id":599147,"date":"2026-05-23T03:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599147\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T03:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:31:15","slug":"the-2002-horror-movie-that-kept-woody-harrelson-up-at-night-i-was-sleepless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599147\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2002 horror movie that kept Woody Harrelson up at night: “I was sleepless”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Woody<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n

Fri 22 May 2026 17:15, UK <\/p>\n

Even though he\u2019s a character actor and occasional leading man with a 40-year career behind him that\u2019s encompassed almost every genre under the sun, Woody Harrelson<\/a> has never been in a horror movie.<\/p>\n

For someone with such an eclectic filmography, one that\u2019s covered everything from talking apes and superheroes to effects-laden apocalypses and being a white man who can\u2019t jump, spine-chilling cinema is about the only thing to have eluded the three-time Academy Award nominee so far.<\/p>\n

While you could reasonably point to Ruben Fleischer\u2019s two Zombieland flicks, they\u2019re not really horror films<\/a>, are they? Sure, they\u2019ve got plenty of zombies and blood and guts to spare, but those pictures have less to do with gut-wrenching terror and more to do with generating laughs from the shuffling undead.<\/p>\n

Andy Serkis\u2019 Venom: Let There Be Carnage may have tried to present itself as a combination of comic book adaptation and body horror, what with Tom Hardy and Harrelson both being possessed by aliens that turn them into monstrous beasts, but it was a run-of-the-mill superhero smackdown at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

Many recognisable actors have ticked the horror box at the very beginning<\/a> of their careers, long before they became household names, and since Harrelson had been cast in his breakthrough role in Cheers prior to his feature-length debut in 1986\u2019s Wildcats, maybe that\u2019s why the genre has passed him by.<\/p>\n

Either that, or he\u2019s a big scaredy cat. He wouldn\u2019t be the first thespian to avoid horror like the plague after operating under the impression that if they can\u2019t hack it as an audience member, there\u2019s no chance they\u2019ll be able to handle being on the set of one. Perhaps it just isn\u2019t his bag, but he did reveal the one that terrified him to the point he couldn\u2019t sleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally get freaked out watching horror films,\u201d Harrelson shared, confirming that he is, in fact, a big scaredy cat. \u201cI liked Shaun of the Dead, because I like horror comedies.\u201d That helps explain why he was so drawn to Zombieland<\/a>, which is also a light-hearted horror comedy, but there are some movies he\u2019d rather not have to watch again.<\/p>\n

Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 28 Days Later?\u201d he added. \u201cI was sleepless, man.\u201d One of the most influential horrors of the 21st century, since almost every zombified production to emerge in its wake owes a debt of gratitude in one way or another, Danny Boyle\u2019s classic end-of-the-world nail-biter isn\u2019t for the faint of heart, and Harrelson would appear to be among that number.<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t have been the only person left unable to catch a wink after watching Cillian Murphy\u2019s Jim barely eke out his survival<\/a>, but at least it didn\u2019t put him off zombies to the extent that he turned down Zombieland as a matter of principle, just in case there were any more sleepless nights to come.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Fri 22 May 2026 17:15, UK Even though he\u2019s a character actor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17181,96,2839,56,54,55,97586],"class_list":["post-599147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-28-days-later","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-woody-harrelson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}