Early life
Woods was born in Vernal, Utah to Gail Peyton Woods, an army intelligence officer who died in 1960 following routine surgery, and Martha Dixon, who operated a pre-school after her husband's death; he has a brother, Michael. Woods, who was raised in his Irish American mother's Catholic religion, grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School. Woods had been accepted to attend the United States Air Force Academy with the intention of becoming a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, several weeks before he was to depart, Woods suffered an accident involving falling through a plate glass window - which injured his hand tendons severely enough to result in his acceptance to the Academy being retracted.
Thus Woods chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at MIT where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as a surgeon), but dropped out in 1969, just before his graduation, in order to pursue a career in acting. Woods headed to New York City when he called his mother and told her the truth.
While his mother wasn't thrilled at the prospect of her son pursuing a career as an actor, she blessed him to follow his dream. Before this transition to acting, however, he was considered a brilliant student and was permitted to enroll in a linear algebra course at UCLA while still in high school, having scored a perfect 800 on the verbal portion of the SAT and a 779 on the math portion. He is claimed to possess an I.Q. of 180.
Career
His career has been noted for the intense characters he has chosen. He was nominated for an Academy Award twice: the first in 1987 for Best Actor in Salvador and again in 1996 for Best Supporting Actor for Ghosts of Mississippi. He has also garnered critical praise for his voice work for Hades in Disney's Hercules. His personal favorite of all of his roles, however, is as the domineering gangster Max in Sergio Leone's gangster epic Once Upon A Time In America (1984).
Woods appeared as himself in the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer and Apu", and in an episode of Family Guy entitled "Peter's Got Woods".
Woods and 9/11
On a flight to Los Angeles several weeks before the attacks on September 11th, 2001, Woods grew suspicious of four of his fellow-passengers: well-dressed men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. Throughout the flight, the men stared straight ahead, did not speak with one another except in low, hushed tones, and did not eat or sleep. Woods became so convinced that the men were "casing" the plane that he kept his cutlery after lunch and shared his suspicions with a flight attendant. "I said, 'I think this plane is going to be hijacked.' I told her, 'I know how serious it is to say this,' and asked to speak to the captain." The first officer promptly assured Woods that the cockpit door would be kept locked and the plane landed safely.
On the evening of September 11th, Woods told the FBI in Los Angeles about the encounter. At six-forty-five the next morning he was roused by a telephone call from an FBI agent. "I said, 'I'll get ready and I'll come down to the federal building,'" Woods recalled. "He said, 'That's O.K. We're outside your house.'" When he was shown photographs, Woods thought he recognized two of the hijackers - Hamza Alghamdi, who was on United Airlines Flight 175 (which struck the south tower of the World Trade Center) and Khalid Almihdhar, who was on American Airlines Flight 77 (which struck The Pentagon).
According to writer Annie Jacobsen, FBI agents told her in a private conversation that Mohammed Atta, who was the unofficial leader of the 9/11 hijackers, was in fact on the flight with Woods.
Politics
Woods is a vocal supporter of U.S. President George W. Bush and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. Woods lobbied hard to play Giuliani in a biopic about his mayoralty and considers the role one of the favorites of his career.
Partial filmography
The Fairly OddParents Movie (2006)
Kingdom Hearts II (2006)
Family Guy (2005)
Be Cool (2005)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (voice of Mike Toreno) (2004)
Northfork (2003)
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Stuart Little 2 (voice) (2002)
John Q (2002)
Recess: School's Out Voice of Dr. Philium Benedict (2001)
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (voice) (2001)
Any Given Sunday (1999)
The General's Daughter (1999)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)
Contact (1997)
Hercules (voice) (1997)
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)
Nixon (1995)
Casino (1995)
The Specialist (1994)
The Simpsons (1994)
Citizen Cohn (1992)
Chaplin (1992)
True Believer (1989)
The Boost (1988)
Best Seller (1987)
Salvador (1986)
Cat's Eye (1985)
Against All Odds (1984)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Videodrome (1983)
Eyewitness (1981)
The Onion Field (1979)
Holocaust {1978} TV Mini Series
The Choirboys (1977)
The Way We Were (1973)
Trivia
On the animated sitcom Family Guy, the high school of the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island is named James Woods High School in tribute to James Woods. The town also features a forest called James Woods. James Woods voiced himself in the 2005 episode Peter's Got Woods, as well as several minor characters in the series' fifth season.
Recently James Woods has shared an endorsement for the online poker website Hollywood Poker with poker enthusiast Vince Van Patten. James can be found playing regularly at Hollywood Poker and contributes content to the website.
James Woods' endorsement of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, an instructional poker text, appears on the back of the book jacket.
Quentin Tarantino wrote the part of Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs with Woods in mind but his agent rejected the script without showing it to the actor. When Woods learned of this sometime later he fired the agent.
During the filming of The Boost Woods became romantically involved with co-star Sean Young. After Woods broke off the relationship he became victim of a number of assaults by Young.
Disney animators studied Woods' appearance in most of his movies over and over again to perfect the look of his voice character in Hercules, Hades, especially his face, which is striking in similarities. They also featured him in the 2001 movie, Recess: School's Out as Dr. Philium Benedict.
Woods is a devoted fan of New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and lobbied fiercely to play the role in Rudy!: The Rudy Giuliani Story. James Woods was considered for the part of Donald Kimball in American Psycho, but he turned it down. The part was given to Willem Dafoe.
James Woods received a score of 1580 on the SAT, which included a perfect score on the verbal section of the test. (Note: test was taken under the "old" scoring methods, which was only out of 1600 and before revisions to the scoring system which made higher scores more likely) Very close to his family, Woods makes frequent trips back to his native Rhode Island to visit. James plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the American Stroke Association charity. In 2006, James finished in 24th place out of 692 at the L.A. Poker Classic for $40,000. During a press interview for Kingdom Hearts II, Woods admitted that he is an avid video game player.
