After suffering the dishonor of being called one of the worst movies of the year by Quentin Tarantino, the folks behind Rampart thought they had the perfect promotional strategy to turn things around, a Reddit AMA (“ask me anything”) with Rampart star Woody Harrelson. What resulted was somewhere between “fracas” and “debacle” on the Kerfufflometer™. For one thing, Woody apparently interpreted “Ask Me Anything” as a kind of improv challenge where you can only answer in the form of a plug for your movie. Leading to exchanges like this:
SCVanguard: Out of all the roles you played, which has been the most rewarding, most difficult, and most fun? And if you are willing to answer… what’s the one role you wish you didn’t take?
iamwoodyharrelson: Can I say rampart? It really took over my life for a while. I wouldn’t say fun is the operative word.
well there was a lot of …the great thing about working with Oren is …he gives you an incredible playground. And all the tools… great direction, wonderful words to say… and inside of that he says “go play.”
Working with oren… he’s adaptable… if he finds this is working, he commands you, tells you to keep going, he’s always pushing the outer limits.
As for the other roles, well if they don’t specifically come up in conversation, I don’t give them much thought!
Holy Ambien, Batman, I didn’t know this was an interview for snoozeparty.com. Reddit commenters responded accordingly, spewing vitriol like only anonymous internet commenters can. Luckily, the event wasn’t a total loss, as another Redditor told the following awesome story:
AndyRooney: I swear this is a true story. I went to a high school in LA and you crashed our prom after party (Universal Hilton). You ended up taking the virginity of a girl named Roseanne. You didn’t call her afterwards. She cried a lot. Do you remember any of this and can confirm or have you been so knee deep in hollywood pooty for so long that this qualifies as a mere blip?
/not kidding.
Whenever I see him interviewed (like on Letterman a couple of nights ago) I always think back on this and just shake my head. Sorry Woody….but whatever, he has a pretty notorious reputation for being a pussy hound. And its not like I asked President Obama or UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon if they boned a high school graduate….he’s just a Hollywood actor and this is an AMA. So yeah. (and I highly doubt he’s answering in any case except for maybe 4 words; “No, it never happened.”)
Woody later answered “First of off, its not true, and second off, I don’t want to answer questions about that. Lets focus on the film people.” More relevant for our purposes, the original questioner added the following details:
[same guy, later addition to original question] To answer some questions – yes she was pretty attractive (and no I’m not Roseanne you witty motherf*ckers, nor was I her date – wasn’t particularly close actually. Just ran in the same circle.). The weird thing is that she was a pretty serious girl not known as a partier and had a lot of guys after her. Pretty shy and quiet, which is why afterwards I was like what the f*ck? Her? (also not giving year because I just know some of you internet detectives will track the poor girl down.). If he can’t remember this event given the circumstances, name and hotel…well he really has gotten laid too much in his life.
Sadly, he never said what color panties she was wearing. I’m going to assume purple. And let’s all assume this whole story is completely, 100% true, because if it is, that would be AMAZING. A famous actor crashing a prom party and deflowering a high school chick has to be considered one of the most awesomely dickish dick moves of all time, like Adam Sandler-movie-villain-level dickishness. Just imagine spotting some young trim on the arm of a pimply 17-year-old drinking virgin piña coladas in a hotel bar. Then you think to yourself, “Hmm, what would Bad Santa do?” and swoop on her. I’m not saying I’d do it, but I understand.
In fact, I’m going to take this one step further and assume that “Roseanne” not only lost her virginity to Woody Harrelson and cried, but also became pregnant with his seed, and later gave birth to a baby. A baby who would eventually grow up to become Boondock Saints director Troy Duffy. That seems like the safest assumption.