Why Woody Harrelson Was Never The Same After Natural Born Killers

In order to play Mickey, Harrelson had to get into the mindset of someone who could kill without remorse. Mickey had been abused as a child, and having never healed from those traumatizing childhood experiences, he eventually became a violent murderer. So Harrelson decided to dive into true crime stories to learn more about what might push a person like Mickey to lash out. 

"I had all these books on different serial killers, tapes, interviews. My mind was saturated with it," Harrelson told the Los Angeles Times. "The movie has humor in it, but there's some pretty intense stuff. That movie brought up a lot of my shadow elements, my anger, my rage."

Digging into this kind of research was also intensely personal for Harrelson. As it turns out, his dad, Charles Harrelson, was a contract killer who went to prison for murdering a federal judge. It was a dark place to tap into, but Woody turned his own demons into inspiration for the role.