Naturally Born for the Role
an extract from Robert Cettl's book Film Tales: Movie Trivia in the Age of DVD (on sale now in print and soon in e-book)
Oliver Stone was already a controversial director by the time he came to make Natural Born Killers. He had already made the likes of Platoon, Wall Street and Born on the Fourth of July and was considered one of the most accomplished and thought-provoking of mainstream American film-makers. His vision for Natural Born Killers was something much different: a full-scale visual and aural assault on the audience – a barrage of a modern satire of a movie. His approach to casting was thus likewise considered. Indeed, actor Woody Harrelson, best known for his role as the loveable numbskull Woody on the hit TV sitcom Cheers, was picked for the lead role in this film partially because his father was in prison, serving a double-life sentence for the murder of a federal judge and had been apparently rumoured to have been one of the three people briefly arrested on the grassy knoll in Dallas now so infamously linked to the John F. Kennedy assassination. The director insisted a genetic connection existed in the actor’s eyes and on set would apparently often goad him into performance by shouting “think of your father”.