Woody Harrelson began his career playing loveable barman Woody Boyd in the long-running sitcom Cheers, and has since gone from strength to strength.

He boasts an astonishingly wide variety of film roles, spanning violent zombie killer Tallahassee in horror comedy Zombieland, self-assured bounty hunter Carson in No Country for Old Men, mass murderer Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, blind telemarketer and pianist Ezra in Seven Pounds, and alcoholic anti-hero Haymitch Abernathy in the Hunger Games franchise.

Woody was Oscar nominated for his roles as adult magazine publisher Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt and troubled war hero Will Montgomery in The Messenger.

If all this wasn’t exhausting enough for one man, he’s now dominating our small screens once again alongside Matthew McConaughey in acclaimed crime drama True Detective, and remains one of Hollywood’s most interesting and colourful characters – the following ten fast facts stand as proof…

1. Woody is an ethical vegan and raw foodist. He only eats raw and dried foods, and also avoids sugar and flour. In 2011, he was listed as one of PETA’s 20 most famous vegetarians and appeared on a postage stamp as part of the honour. He and Jessica Chastain were named PETA’s sexiest vegetarians in 2012. When the actor filmed Zombieland, he ate custom-made fake Twinkies made from cornmeal.

2. Harrelson’s father Charles was convicted of the murder of Federal Judge John H Wood in San Antonio, and handed two life sentences. He died on March 15 2007 in a maximum security prison in Colorado.

The actor later visited Charles in prison, and said of him in a 1988 interview: “My father is one of the most articulate, well-read, charming people I’ve ever known. Still, I’m just now gauging whether he merits my loyalty or friendship.

“I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father.”

3. Woody has had a number of legal troubles over the years, escaping a jail sentence when he was charged with disorderly conduct back in 1982 for dancing in the street and causing an obstruction to traffic. He was also charged with resisting arrest after running away from police officers.

In 1996, Harrelson was arrested in Kentucky for the symbolic planting of four hemp seeds, in a bid to challenge a state law which did not distinguish between marijuana and industrial hemp. He was acquitted of the charges in 2000, and later became an advisor for the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In 2002, a case against Harrelson was dropped when he offered to pay a London cab driver £550 for repairs after an alleged incident, and in 2008 he faced a lawsuit from a paparazzi photographer who he was alleged to have assaulted – the case was dismissed two years later.

4. Harrelson has twice played in Soccer Aid, the charity football competition founded by Robbie Williams and Jonathan Wilkes. In 2010, he scored the winning penalty for the Rest of the World team, making it the first time the English celebrity side had ever lost.

Harrelson later said of the event that he “didn’t even remember the moment of scoring”. So, here it is in all its glory:

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5. Harrelson was included in People magazine’s ’50 Most Beautiful People’ list for 1990, and owes this partially to a random girl he met on a bus once in New York when he was still looking to get his big break.

“I was on a bus and some girl sees me blowing my nose,” he recalled. “I had acne all over my face, which I’d had for years and years. And she’s like, ‘Hey, you’re lactose intolerant. If you quit dairy, all these symptoms you got will be gone in three days’. I was like, 24. And I was like, ‘No way’. But three days later: gone.”

In its rundown, the magazine dubbed him a “wide-eyed fun-seeker (and off-hours playwright)”, and quotes his Cheers co-star Kirstie Alley as saying: “Woody is sexy because he has no idea he’s sexy. He has this little-boy quality that’s sexy to older women. I think he’s naive about older women but believe me, he’s got the younger women down.”

6. Those claims that Harrelson was once a sex addict and was “monumentally lucky” when it came to the ladies? All blown out of proportion, according to the man himself.

“It came out that I described myself as a sex addict,” said the actor in a 2010 interview with Hustler proprietor Larry Flynt. “That’s not true. I can go through long droughts.”

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