Woody Harrelson Looks to Carl Jung for Stability

Woody Harrelson is much more dynamic than we thought. The actor who once played the beloved bartender Woody Boyd in the eighties sitcom, Cheers, has long surpassed his reputation on the small screen. Harrelson has played characters that are seemingly beyond his scope. He played a murderer in the 1994 film, Natural Born Killers and was a military officer in the 2009 film, The Messenger. In the same year, Harrelson played a zombie hunter in Zombieland. It’s not easy to make those types of character switches; one minute you’re a homicidal maniac and the next you’re a straight-laced military officer. That has to rack the brain. Apparently, this is not the case for Harrelson.

In the article Why Everybody Knows His Name by David Carr for the New York Times (October 30^th edition), Harrelson explains how it is simple for him to mentally get into the roles he takes on. He looks to the works of Carl Jung to maintain a level head. By referring to Jung, Harrelson is able to make his connection between the ‘individual psyche’ and the ‘collective unconscious.’ Jung For Beginners (written by Jon Platania, Ph. D. and illustrated by Joe Lee) explains Jung’s theories and concepts in depth. Harrelson directly refers to the concept of ‘shadow,’  which is the “unconscious part of the personality characterized by traits that the conscious ego wants to rejects or ignore,” (Platania 72).

In Harrelson’s latest film, Rampart, (due to release December 2011) he plays a corrupt LA police officer. This may not be much of a switch from some other roles he’s played, but it’s a switch from his everyday life. Harrelson is a vegan who practices Yoga and is generally at ease. He’ll look to Jung again for mental balance throughout the project.