Profile: Actor Woody Harrelson Does 'Sustainable Development'
> BY ALALEH AKHAVAN
Copyright © 2002 by The Earth Times. All rights reserved

Harrelson works the stadium crowd with the ease of a free- loving candidate in a presidential election. The extras have gotten out of their seats, ignoring the production assistants who are trying to quiet them down. They reach their hands into the field hoping to get a handshake. He gives them a hug. Or an autograph. Or he stops for some quick banter. He even talks to one fan's sister on a cell phone in the middle of the throngs of people vying for his attention. Fans tend to treat Harrelson with a mix of familiarity and reverence, cracking jokes with him as you would with an older, cooler brother. If he accidentally passes by someone with outstretched arms, he goes back and gives them a hug. "I have never ever, not once, seen Woody turn someone down for a smile or a wave or a hug," says Joe Hickey, Executive Director of the Kentucky Hemp Grower's Cooperative and a longtime friend, activist and business partner whom Harrelson describes as being "as close as a brother" to him.

Harrelson is an outspoken sustainable development activist whose cross-generational, international appeal stems from a long and successful career in television and movies. His portrayal of a good- natured bartender on the classic American television show Cheers has become a part of the fabric of American popular culture, and his controversial roles in such movies as Natural Born Killers and The People Vs. Larry Flynt have established him as a talented screen actor. High- profile actions such as his arrest in 1996 for scaling the Golden Gate Bridge to hang a banner protesting the logging of the Headwaters Complex, the world's largest unprotected ancient redwood forest, have confirmed his identity as an activist.

His friends describe Harrelson as funny, a practical joker, an idealist "with a heart and soul that knows what's right," according to Hickey. In a Hollywood where movie stars are often quick to adopt the latest lifestyle trends and the hottest causes, it becomes the burden of the individual to prove his or her commitment, and Harrelson is no exception. There are critics who see him as flaky, new- agey, and motivated primarily by his taste for marijuana. It is not difficult to see where this comes from. He has a disarming midwestern charm that, particularly within the backdrop of New York City, gives him an aura of almost unobtainable calm. He is a certified Yoga instructor and has been a vegan for the past 12 years (he currently eats only raw foods), successfully raising both his children on vegan diets. He's toured the country on a bicycle, stopping to speak at college campuses about "simple organic living." He was followed by a retired Greyhound bus he's named "the Mothership," a vehicle that was reconstructed with sustainable materials, and which runs on solar power and hemp oil. He is easily distracted and often steers off into tangential thoughts, but he answers directly to questions about marijuana use. When you spend time with him, you realize these eccentricities are the very things that make him seem so genuine, that drive him to an almost childlike honesty. "I have never heard him speak an 'untruth,'" says Hickey, "He talks the talk and he walks the walk." When Harrelson is distracted from a question about his diet, it is by a group of fireflies gathering in a corner of Madison Square Park in downtown Manhattan, "Can you believe how amazing that is?" he marvels. It seeme that it is eagerness, not disinterest, that send him on a tangent. When he talks about the plastic waste of all the water bottles people use, he is immediately honest about his own need for improvement, "I am trying to be more conscientious of my personal waste stream," he adds, a refilled glass bottle dangling from his hand. He tells the story of his first recollection of activism, when in the sixth grade he stood guard at an ant hill to prevent neighborhood kids from kicking it over. Immediately, he admits that he used to kick it over as well until he saw a movie that made him sympathetic to the insects, compelled to confess this youthful indiscretion. There is also an honesty about his celebrity, in the way he seems willing to enjoy it, in the way he understands the power of using it.

Breaking the law is always more interesting news when a celebrity is the one doing it.

"Hey Woody," a New York City police officer calls out to him in a mock threatening tone, nudging his partner and laughing, "What's your shirt made out of, huh?" Harrelson's summery, light-green, linen-like shirt was made from hemp, a subspecies of the cannabis plant, a crop that is illegal to grow in the United States. Harrelson has spent countless time and resources defending, promoting, and differentiating hemp from its mind-altering cousin, marijuana. He has even been arrested and has stood trial for planting it. You could theoretically roll up Harrelson's shirt and smoke it if you wanted to, but that would leave you with nothing more than a nasty headache. "There are some people who say I like hemp because I like marijuana," says Harrelson, "but that is a very simplistic judgement. For me, hemp is about sustainability and that is why I am interested in it. I am interested in marijuana for a whole different reason.

"Why hemp?" asks Harrelson. "Because it is the longest and strongest natural fiber you can make clothing out of. Because you do not have to use pesticides to grow hemp like you do with cotton. Because you can use it to run automobiles." Hemp is also drought tolerant, a natural weed killer, beneficial for the soil and a good source of agriculturally based fuel, says Hickey, who reactivated the Kentucky Hemp Grower's Cooperative in 1994, seeking to legalize hemp farming in Kentucky as an economic solution for tobacco farmers hard- hit by a declining market. "Woody caught wind of it,"Hickey explains, "and just called out of the blue and I thought it was just somebody pulling my leg, but after we talked a while, I realized that it was really him." Harrelson believed that hemp was the alternative to cutting down forests for paper products, and that it could serve as an important tool for sustainable living. He called Hickey on a Tuesday, and by Friday, Harrelson was in Kentucky. "When I met Woody," Hickey says, " it was like seeing an old friend, and now we have grown into brothers. He said to me, 'I want to change the world' and I said 'I'm with you' and we've been working together ever since." Like a true pair of brothers, the two went ahead and got themselves into trouble. On June 1, 1996, the day after Kentucky's International Hemp Conference for which Harrelson was the keynote speaker, Harrelson planted four industrial hemp seeds on a plot of land in Lee County, Kentucky in front of CNN cameras. He intended to test the constitutionality of Kentucky's definition of "marijuana" as all plants of the cannabis species, including industrial hemp. The case, which made its way through several Kentucky State courts, ended in a courtroom drama worthy of a Hollywood actor. Former Republican Governor Louie B. Nunn offered a closing statement on behalf of Harrelson which ultimately led to a favorable judgment. Grabbing a candy bar made of hemp seed he turned to the jury, "By holding this candy bar in my hand, I am in possession of marijuana according to the Kentucky State Statute," he said, tearing off the wrapper and taking a bite, "Now I got it on me and I got in me."

"Hemp is only a piece of the puzzle," says Hickey, "Sustainability is the main issue here." Harrelson and his wife, Lara Louie, have begun working on a new venture which intends to bring together all the pieces of that puzzle and to present them in an environment which promotes information-sharing and positive action, a website entitled Voice Yourself. "The two of them are really a force to be reckoned with," says Barbara Moss, producer of Voice Yourself, "they complement each other in their commitment to direct so much of their energy and resources into encouraging positive change." The site is a fount of information, containing a somewhat overwhelming array of news clippings, commentary, and links to other websites. Among other things, it also features details of Harrelson's "Simple Organic Living" tour, a variety of Harrelson's personal thoughts and writings, a bulletin board which serves as the hub of discussion, and contributions from Harrelson's mother, Diane Harrelson. According to Moss, the structure and content of the site are still being shaped. The website is intended continue to serve as an alternative information source and a place where voices can come together. "I want to be solution-oriented. I have put in a lot of money, time and effort and I believe we have a huge job," says Harrelson. "We say that this is a free country, but we are so controlled. Enough of us should get together who believe that changes need to be made, and we need to agree on a direction and a plan of action."

At one point in the conversation, I ask him if he ever senses people's cynicism toward his commitment to sustainable living. He answers immediately, saying no, not anymore, not since he's been talking about the same issues for a long time. He starts to use hemp as an example, but then he stops himself, taking a moment to look over his shoulder to where the fireflies had congregated earlier, and begins again, "The people I am trying to talk to are not the people who are casting judgement. It is hard to be anything other than what I am, which is this guy from television and movies, and maybe there is an image already projected about me that I cannot do anything about. I am just a guy who cares like hell about this planet and about changing our collision course of self- destruction."