Woody Harrelson Reversed His Own Politics for 'White House Plumbers'

Woody Harrelson says he had to find a way to play against his own politics for his character in HBO's new Watergate thriller, White House Plumbers.

Harrelson stars as E. Howard Hunt in the series, who was one of the men who was sent to jail for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Justin Theroux joins him as his accomplice G. Gordon Liddy, while Lena Headey plays Hunt's wife, Dorothy.

While the story of Watergate has been told in countless iterations over the decades, White House Plumbers is a satirical political thriller, making it one of the few comedies about the incident that rocked Washington, D.C., in the 1970s. The Watergate scandal proved to be the downfall of President Richard Nixon, who was found to have approved plans for a cover-up after five men broke into the offices of the Democratic Party, where they tapped phones and stole documents.

E. Howard Hunt was an officer in the CIA, who later was appointed to the President's Special Investigations Unit under Nixon, to whom he was passionately loyal. Newsweek asked Harrelson how it felt to play a character so drastically opposed to his own politics.

"Yeah, I'm much more Marxist than a fascist. So yeah, I do feel a big distance a big gap," Harrelson told Newsweek. "One area where I connected with Hunt was in his relation to his family...I understand the concept of being away too much from your family because you go off and work. I couldn't really relate to 'send me Che Guevara's hands in a box' type of mentality, but I understood the family dynamic."

Theroux had a similar task in playing the eccentric G. Gordon Liddy, who together with Hunt orchestrated the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building.

"Like Woody, I don't think I have any personal resemblance to G. Gordon Liddy, at least emotionally," Theroux told Newsweek. "I think that in order to play any character, you kind of have to force yourself to fall in love with them, whether you like him or not, and that was the case with Liddy."

Theroux says he realized that Liddy's story is actually a happy one. "It's hockey sticks for Liddy, his trajectory is just up and up. Even when he goes to prison he's like 'this is fantastic, we're in prison for Nixon.' He got to be a martyr. So I got to enjoy his optimism. It's a quality I wish I had in my own life."

"Liddy was also nuts, and happy to betray his own country for what he thought should be a better country. To each his own I guess," Theroux added.

Woody Harrelson is "purple"

Academy Award-nominated actor Harrelson has been outspoken about his own politics in the past, publicly condemning both President George W. Bush, and President Barack Obama when he disagreed with them.

"I'm liberal and conservative. I'm not blue or red, I'm purple. So I got no leanings either way," Harrelson said after being asked if a liberal cast is widening the political divide by poking fun at Republicans. "This is just an objective take on a funny story."

"I didn't see any part of this project as, 'Oh, this is a good story for either left or right-wing or whatever.' I just thought it is a historical fact that this thing happened, and it's hilarious and very far-fetched," Theroux said.

He continued, "the details in this story are accurate. They did have these nine gemstones they wanted to have. They wanted to kidnap Abbie Hoffman. They wanted to pay hippies to p*** on the stage at the Democratic National Convention. They wanted to torpedo Shirley Chisolm's campaign. They had an endless bag of dirty tricks that was not only dangerous but felonious."

"I think we went too far the other way where you're overly sympathetic to these guys," Harrelson added.

Game of Thrones actress Headey returns to HBO for White House Plumbers, as she plays Dorothy Hunt, who inextricably gets pulled into the Watergate scandal, too. She also considered the politics of the show, and compared it to the modern day.

"I think [the political optics] is irrelevant. I mean, look where we are in the world, politically. It's just insane. It's the most insane legal system in the world. I look at Britain, we talk about what's happened there when everyone just f***** off. And they were like, 'Oh, no one's running it.' So there's that moment in British political history. And then, you know, Trump's in court..."

Comparing the Watergate scandal which resulted in an impeachment process and the resignation of President Nixon, to the modern day, Headey considered what had been learned.

"Well, looking at the last year of political life, no, nothing's been, no...has it?" Headey added, "Oh it's all so silly."

Harrelson and Theroux's double act

Headey thinks what sets White House Plumbers, from the previous Watergate movies and TV shows, are the two lead actors. "Justin and Woody are both just f****** hysterical as Howard and Gordon. It pokes fun at the circus that is the political empire that we all are supposed to revere and think is perfection," she said.

"We've all seen the version of Watergate about how excellent journalism can root out corruption, and the Deepthroats, and Mark Felt, and the 'follow the money' but we haven't seen the actual thing," Theroux said. "It's sort of like doing a movie about bank robberies without showing the bank robbers.

"I think it's gonna be set apart just because it's, a) hilarious. I think it's a very funny true story. And b) It is the crime. It's the entree, not the appetizer," he added.

Theroux and Harrelson met on the set of the television special Live in Front of a Studio Audience in 2019, when Harrelson played Archie Bunker from the classic sitcom All in the Family. Their friendship has blossomed since then.

"I'm not here to sing movie star blues for you, but it can get a bit tedious sometimes," Harrelson said. "You want to have someone around who makes you laugh, so there was a lot of laughter. I could never have known how much fun Justin was until we started working together."

So, how did they develop their rapport on the set of White House Plumbers?

"Well it was a lot of bullying from Woody," Theroux joked. "We hit it off pretty quick in that kind of brotherly way where it was slightly competitive and funny and jokey and it was just really fun."

The first episode of White House Plumbers airs on HBO on May 1. Each new episode airs weekly every Monday from there.

Correction, 4/26/23, 4 p.m. ET: This article was updated to clarify that President Nixon was not found to have ordered the Watergate break-in, but to have approved plans to cover it up.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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