Background and career
James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American actor. Known for fast-talking, intense roles on screen and stage, he has received numerous accolades, including three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and three Actor Awards. Woods made his Broadway debut in the Elliott Baker play The Penny Wars (1969). His early films roles include The Visitors (1972), The Way We Were (1973) and The Gambler (1974), before starring with Meryl Streep in the NBC miniseries Holocaust (1978). He rose to prominence portraying Gregory Powell in The Onion Field (1979). He earned two Academy Awards nominations: one for Best Actor for his role as Richard Boyle in Salvador (1986) and for Best Supporting Actor for playing Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). His notable films include Videodrome (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Straight Talk, Chaplin (both 1992), Casino, Nixon (both 1995), Contact (1997), Another Day in Paradise (1998), Any Given Sunday, The Virgin Suicides (both 1999), and White House Down (2013). He served as an executive producer on Christopher Nolan's epic biographical thriller film Oppenheimer (2023). On television, he won two Primetime Emmy Awards for portraying a man with schizophrenia in the CBS movie Promise (1987) and Bill W. in the ABC film My Name Is Bill W. (1989). He also played Roy Cohn in Citizen Cohn (1992) and Dick Fuld in Too Big to Fail (2011). He starred in the legal drama series Shark (2006–2008), and acted in the crime series Ray Donovan (2013). He has voiced roles for Hercules (1997), Recess: School's Out (2001), Stuart Little 2 (2002) and Surf's Up (2007), as well as voicing himself in The Simpsons (1993), and Family Guy (2005–2016).
James Howard Woods was born on April 18, 1947 in Vernal, Utah, the elder of two brothers. His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was a United States Army intelligence officer who died in 1960 after routine surgery. His mother, Martha A. (née Smith), ran a pre-school after her husband's death. She later remarried, to Thomas E. Dixon. Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School, from which he graduated in 1965. He is of part Irish descent and was raised Catholic, briefly serving as an altar boy. Woods was an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He stated on Inside the Actors Studio that he originally intended to become an eye surgeon. He pledged the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and was a member of the student theatre group Dramashop, acting in and directing a number of plays. He dropped out of MIT in 1969, one semester before graduating, to pursue an acting career. Woods has said that he owes his acting career to Tim Affleck, father of actors Ben and Casey Affleck. The senior Affleck was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston, which Woods attended as a student.
Woods appeared in 36 plays before making his Broadway debut in the 1969 play The Penny Wars. The following year, he acted in the first American production of Frank McMahon's adaptation of Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy (1970) at the Lyceum Theatre. He got the part by pretending he was British. He returned to Broadway the following year to portray David Darst in Daniel Berrigan's The Trial of the Catonsville Nine also at the Lyceum Theatre. In 1971, he played Bob Rettie in the American premiere of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The following year the production moved to Broadway at the Royale Theatre where Woods starred alongside Edward Herrmann and Christopher Guest. In 1972, Woods won a Theatre World Award for his performance. He returned to Broadway in 1973 to portray Steven Cooper in the original production of Jean Kerr's Finishing Touches at the Plymouth Theatre. Woods has garnered a reputation as a prominent Hollywood character actor, having appeared in over 130 films and television series. By the early 1970s, he was getting small movie roles including his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's The Visitors which debuted at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. That same year, he acted in the neo-noir crime film Hickey & Boggs (1972) starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. The following year he had a supporting turn as Barbra Streisand's college boyfriend before she meets Robert Redford in the Sydney Pollack directed romance drama The Way We Were (1973). He continued to act in films such as the crime drama The Gambler (1974) starring James Caan, the neo-noir Night Moves (1975) with Gene Hackman and the comedy Alex & the Gypsy (1976) with Jack Lemmon. He acted in the Robert Aldrich directed comedy-drama The Choirboys (1977) alongside Charles Durning, Louis Gossett Jr., Randy Quaid and Burt Young.
Woods rose to prominence playing the husband of Meryl Streep in the critically acclaimed four episode miniseries Holocaust (1978) which aired on NBC. The series focuses on the story of a Jewish family's struggle to survive Nazi Germany's campaign of genocide against the Jewish people. The series also starred Michael Moriarty and Rosemary Harris. Holocaust won the Outstanding Limited Series as well as seven other Primetime Emmy Awards. The following year Woods took a leading role starring in The Onion Field (1979) playing murderer Gregory Powell. Critic Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune praised Woods' performance writing, "At the center of The Onion Field is a bunch of superior performances. James Woods (the persecuted artist in "The Holocaust") is a standout as Greg Powell, the ringleader of the crooks, a horrible creature with a scarred face and a quicksilver personality that ranges from murderous to fatherly to murderous in a matter of seconds." He also opined that "Woods deserves an Academy Award nomination for this role." Woods received nominations for Best Actor from the Golden Globe Awards, the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York Film Critics Circle Association, but notably not from the Academy Awards. At the start of the 1980s, Woods played an eccentric and unpredictable janitor in the Peter Yates directed thriller Eyewitness (1981) co-starring Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman and Christopher Plummer. He acted in the prison drama Fast-Walking (1982) with Variety giving the film a mixed review but praising him as "always interesting to watch". That same year, he acted in the psychological drama Split Image (1982).
Woods took the starring role in the David Cronenberg written and directed science-fiction body horror film Videodrome (1983). Critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the film and the leading performance writing, "By far Mr. Cronenberg's most inspired touch is the casting of Mr. Woods, who brings an almost backhanded heroism to the horror genre. In villainous or sinister roles...Mr. Woods has been startling, but that kind of casting is almost a redundancy. Here, his offhand wisecracking gives the performance a sharply authentic edge. And his jittery, insinuating manner even begins to look like a kind of innocence, in comparison with the calm, soothing attitudes of the video-crazed megalomaniacs he's up against." He then took on the role of Maximillian "Max" Bercovicz, a Jewish gangster, in Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984) alongside Robert De Niro, Tuesday Weld, and Joe Pesci. Woods considers his role in the film as one of his favorites. The film premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation. Rotten Tomatoes reports an 86% approval rating with 51 reviews, the consensus reading, "Sergio Leone's epic crime drama is visually stunning, stylistically bold, and emotionally haunting, and filled with great performances from the likes of Robert De Niro and James Woods." That same year, he also starred in Against All Odds as a nightclub owner who hires an aging football star, played by Jeff Bridges, to find his missing girlfriend. In Oliver Stone's drama Salvador (1986), Woods portrayed real-life journalist Richard Boyle as he chronicles events in El Salvador. Despite his criticism that ""Salvador" is long and disjointed and tries to tell too many stories," Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "This is the sort of role Woods was born to play". He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor. He also received his first Academy Award nomination for his performance. In 1987, Woods won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as a disabled man in the made-for-television film Promise (1986). The film also starred James Garner and Piper Laurie. In 1989, Woods won his second Primetime Emmy Award, for his role as the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. in the made-for-television drama film, My Name Is Bill W. starring James Garner and Gary Sinise. In 1988, Woods portrayed a man struggling with cocaine addiction in The Boost. While the film received mixed reviews Woods' was praised for his performance with Critic Roger Ebert declaring that it was "one of the most convincing and horrifying portraits of drug addiction I've ever seen". He also added, "Woods is one of the most intense, unpredictable actors in the movies today. You watch his characters because they seem capable of exploding – not out of anger, but out of hurt, shame and low self-esteem. They're wounded, but they fight back by being smarter than anyone else and using jokes and sarcasm to keep people at arm's length." On October 28, 1989, Woods hosted Saturday Night Live with Don Henley as the musical guest. In 1989, Woods acted in the courtroom drama True Believer with Robert Downey Jr. and Yuji Okumoto and family drama Immediate Family acting alongside Glenn Close, Mary Stuart Masterson and Kevin Dillon. Of the latter, critic Roger Ebert noted of his performance "Woods is toned down from his other recent performances. He is the best actor in Hollywood at playing manics, crazies, hyperactive schemers and intelligent con men, but here he simply plays a more or less normal husband with ordinary desires and passions. He and Close make a convincing couple."
Woods was offered a leading role in Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut, the low-budget film Reservoir Dogs (1992), but his agent rejected the script without showing it to the actor. When Woods learned of this some time later, he fired his agents (CAA), replacing them with ICM. That year, he did portray Roy Cohn in the HBO television film Citizen Cohn (1992) directed by Frank Pierson and featuring performances by Lee Grant, Frederic Forrest and Pat Hingle. Tony Scott of Variety praised the film and Woods writing, "It's Cohn's show and James Woods, in imaginative casting, is unnerving, ranging from the confused hospital-ridden patient to the smartly paced, homophobic gay prosecutor who knows every vicious trick to nail opponents. Woods's interp, chock-full of nuances, is masterful." For his performance he received nominations for the Golden Globe Award and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie. He starred with Dolly Parton in the romantic comedy Straight Talk (1992). He also took a supporting role as attorney Joseph Scott in the Richard Attenborough directed biographical epic film Chaplin (1992) starring Robert Downey Jr. Woods played a supporting role of a hustler, Lester Diamond, in Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), alongside Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci. When Woods had heard that Scorsese was interested in working with him, he called Scorsese's office and left the following message: "Any time, any place, any part, any fee." The film was well received by critics, earning a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus reading, "Impressive ambition and bravura performances from an outstanding cast help Casino pay off in spite of a familiar narrative that may strike some viewers as a safe bet for director Martin Scorsese." Also in 1995, he starred as H. R. Haldeman in Oliver Stone's Nixon, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon. Woods received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination along with the rest of the cast for its ensemble work. That same year, he acted in the HBO television film Indictment: The McMartin Trial acting opposite Mercedes Ruehl earning nominations for Golden Globe Award and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie. In Rob Reiner's film Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Woods appeared alongside Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg. He portrayed Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist who assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. The film was not a box-office success and received mixed reviews, earning a critics' review of 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, some critics praised Woods' performance. Janet Maslin, in her New York Times review, states, "Woods's performance as the hateful old reprobate Beckwith is the film's chief sign of life". The Los Angeles Times published an article titled "James Woods is So Good at Being Bad". In the articles it describes Woods having aggressively lobbied director Rob Reiner for the role, which Reiner originally intended for an actor in his 70s, like Paul Newman. "Beckwith's Mississippi accent, which Woods perfected by watching tapes and working with an accent coach, helped him distance himself from the character. 'I imagined I was speaking a foreign language'." Woods earned a Golden Globe nomination as well as his second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1997, Woods starred as the National Security Advisor in Robert Zemeckis's film Contact, opposite Jodie Foster. He would later voice Hades in the Disney Animated film, Hercules (1997), where he received critical praise. Critic Roger Ebert described Woods' performance as full of "diabolical glee" and compared his performance of "verbal inventiveness" to that of Robin Williams in Aladdin. Janet Maslin of The New York Times also praised Woods' performance remarking "Woods shows off the full verve of an edgy Scarfe villain". He reprised the role of Hades again in the television series of the same name (where he won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2000 for his work in season 2), as well as in House of Mouse (2001–2003), the Kingdom Hearts video game series, Disney Speedstorm (2023), and Once Upon a Studio (2023). He starred in Larry Clark's independent film Another Day in Paradise (1998) alongside Melanie Griffith. Woods appeared in Sofia Coppola's directorial debut The Virgin Suicides (1999) alongside Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett and Kathleen Turner. The film premiered at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival to a largely positive critical reception. He also starred as Dr. Harvey Mandrake in Oliver Stone's sports drama Any Given Sunday (1999).
