Woods was born on April 18, 1947, in Vernal, Utah,[5] and had a brother ten years younger.[6] His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was a United States Army intelligence officer who died in 1960[7] after routine surgery. His mother, Martha A. (née Smith), ran a pre-school after her husband's death[8] and later married Thomas E. Dixon.[9] 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.[10][11]
Woods was an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[12] 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.[13]
Woods has said that he owes his acting career to Tim Affleck, father of actors Ben and Casey Affleck, who was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston, which Woods attended as a student.[14]
Woods took the starring role in the David Cronenberg written and directed science-fictionbody 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."[29]
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.[30]
The film premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation.[31]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."[32] 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 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."[37] On October 28, 1989, Woods hosted Saturday Night Live with Don Henley as the musical guest.[38] 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."[39]
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".[49] 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.[21]
"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'."[21] Woods earned a Golden Globe nomination[citation needed] as well as his second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[50]
During the 2000s, Woods lent his voice to various films, video games, and television shows including another Disney film, Recess: School's Out (2001) as Dr. Phillium Benedict, the twisted former headmaster who attempts to abolish summer vacation. Woods would also voice Falcon in Stuart Little 2 (2002). He appeared in the Denzel Washington thriller John Q. (2002) and had a cameo in Be Cool (2005), featuring an all-star cast. In 2007, Woods voiced the role of Reggie Belafonte, a short-tempered sea otter, in the Sony Pictures Animation film, Surf's Up. The character is a Don King-like promoter for the main character's rival. The film went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature losing to Pixar's Ratatouille. From 2005 to 2016, Woods has played a recurring role as himself in Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy. He has continued to voice Hades in the Kingdom Hearts video games. Since 2016, he has also voiced the role of Lex Luthor in the animated series Justice League Action. From 2006 to 2008, Woods starred in the CBS legal drama series Shark. He played an infamous defense lawyer who, after growing disillusioned when his client commits a murder, becomes a successful prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.
He also appeared as a fictional version of himself in the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer and Apu" and in eight episodes of Family Guy, which is set in Woods' home state of Rhode Island. He is also the namesake for James Woods High School in Family Guy. The high school's name was later changed to Adam West High School to reflect the death of Adam West, who was a character in the show. Woods has lent his voice to video games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In 2012, Woods attended an anniversary screening of a restored cut of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. The screening was made possible by Martin Scorsese and his Film Foundation which digitally restored the film as well as included 40 additional minutes of footage.[61] Woods, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Connelly, and Elizabeth McGovern attended the premiere and introduced the film.[62]
In 1980, Woods married costume designer Kathryn Morrison-Pahoa. They divorced in 1983.[71] In 1989, he married 26-year-old equestrian and boutique owner Sarah Owen, but they divorced four months later.[72] In 1992, Woods dated Heather Graham, his co-star in the film Diggstown.[73]
Woods was raised as Roman Catholic and considers himself a practicing follower of the religion.[74]
On December 14, 2015, while he was driving alone westbound through an ice storm on Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, a speeding driver lost control and crashed into five other cars. Woods swerved his Jeep Grand Cherokee to avoid the accident and collided with a retaining wall, but slid backwards into a guard rail 100 feet (30 meters) above the Colorado River. He suffered a minor concussion.[75][76]
In 1988, Woods sued actress Sean Young for $2 million, accusing her of stalking him after they appeared together in the film The Boost.[82] Young later countered that Woods had overreacted when she had spurned his on-set advances.[83] The suit was settled out of court in August 1989,[84][85] including a payment of $227,000 to Young to cover her legal costs.[86]
In 2006, Woods' younger brother Michael Jeffrey Woods died from cardiac arrest at the age of 49. Woods sued Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, alleging negligence. The lawsuit was settled in 2009.[87][88]
In July 2015, Woods sued an anonymous Twitter user known as Abe List, and ten other Twitter users, for $10 million over an allegedly libelous tweet accusing him of being a "cocaine addict".[89] Woods unsuccessfully sought to obtain the name of the Twitter user; the Los Angeles Superior Court denied his motion for discovery in October 2015, holding that he could not "use legal process to pierce the anonymity of internet speakers unless [he] can make a prima facie case." However, in an unexpected later ruling, the user's Anti-SLAPP motion was denied and Woods was permitted to pursue his lawsuit against List, with the ten other defendants being dropped from the lawsuit.[90][91] In October 2016, the defendant's appeal was dismissed; attorney Lisa Bloom, who represented the anonymous Twitter user, revealed that the user had suddenly died.[92] The case was settled out of court soon afterwards, with Woods receiving a letter from Bloom saying that her client "regretted making the tweet and further regrets any harm caused to Mr. Woods' reputation by the tweet."[93]
In 2017, shortly before the Abe List litigation was resolved, Portia Boulger sued Woods for misidentifying her as a Nazi in an allegedly libelous tweet.[94] The tweet included a photo of a different woman giving a Nazi salute while wearing a Donald Trump t-shirt at a campaign event.[95] Boulger sought $3 million in damages.[95] The court ruled in favor of Woods under the innocent construction rule. Boulger appealed, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the ruling.[95]
Woods' name was in an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times (August 17, 2006) that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War.[103] On July 4, 2018, The Gersh Agency, Woods' long-time talent agency, notified him by email that they would no longer represent him. Woods stated that the agency dropped him due to his political views.[104][105][106] He has said that there were many conservative actors who did not share their thoughts because "the blacklist against conservatives in Hollywood is very real."[107]
Woods has frequently expressed his conservative political views on Twitter and has been locked out of his account multiple times for violations of the platform's terms of service.[108][109][110][111] In 2017, a Twitter debate between Woods and Amber Tamblyn escalated after Tamblyn accused Woods of inviting her to Las Vegas when she was underage, which Woods dismissed as a lie.[112]
In 2018, Woods turned his Twitter feed into a bulletin board for missing California wildfires' evacuees, and was credited with saving lives and helping to reunite missing loved ones and pets with their families.[113] He provided aid to actresses Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano, with the latter thanking him for his help saving her horses.[114][115]
In 2022, analysis conducted by researchers with the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public and the KrebsStamos Group found Woods was the top purveyor of election misinformation on Twitter during the late months of 2020.[116][117] That same year, Woods announced his intentions to sue the Democratic National Committee following Elon Musk's release of the Twitter Files. Journalist Matt Taibbi reported that the Democratic National Committee requested a tweet made by Woods, related to Hunter Biden, be removed from Twitter.[118][119] Critics of Woods defended Twitter's decision by pointing out that he posted images of Hunter Biden's genitals to his account.[120][121]
9/11 experience
On August 1, 2001, Woods was on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles. On the flight he noticed four men near him acting suspiciously. He said that they never drank anything, did not order food service and talked to nobody, only whispering amongst themselves. Woods reported his suspicions to the co-pilot in flight, and he claimed that those concerns were passed on to the FAA. On the evening of September 11, Woods called the FBI and repeated his concerns; they interviewed him at his home the next morning. Woods believed that he had encountered four of the nineteen terrorists/hijackers responsible for the September 11 attacks, who were on the flight to study it in preparation for the attacks.[122][123] Woods was interviewed by FBI agents regarding this incident. He has confirmed that he looked at pictures of the hijackers and identified two terrorists as being among the men that he had seen on his flight.[124]
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