In the delightful new horror comedy Zombieland, Woody Harrelson gets to break stuff -- a lot of stuff. Windshields, bongos, entire shelves stacked with vases, and most of all, heads. In one scene, he swings a banjo at the a zombie cranium so hard, the entire theater rumbles. As the tough-as-nails zombie slayer Tallahassee, Harrelson is brutal, but also kinda sweet. In between inserting shotgun rounds into the heads of every unfortunate undead soul he sees, he searches the charred, desolate landscape for Twinkies. It's that kind of film. But in real life, Harrelson is nothing at all like his character. I found him in a room at the Waldorf Astoria relaxed as can be, slouched back on the couch, barefoot and lunching on some veggies from the Candle Cafe. We spoke about the new film, as well as another apocalyptic adventure he's got on the horizon, Roland Emmerich's 2012.

So what’s up? How’s the day going? It’s going great. I usually hate doing press, I’ll be honest ... but I’ve met a lot of cool people.

I noticed you were at the press screening the other night. How many times have you seen the film so far? Three.

Is it a thrill each time? Well, last night wasn’t quite the same. The first two were a lot of young people, just whoopin’ it up like they were at a rock concert. Last night was a little more staid ... not to say that it was a bad response. I do like the movie a lot.

Your character is not the typical action character; he’s a bit off kilter. I don’t feel like I’m cut out of that action hero cloth. I mean, I started out in theater. I think there’s great character development in this. There’s more dimensions to the characters, and people really seem to like them. But on the other hand, I just don’t know about this action stuff, man, I don’t know about it.

You did it well. You’ve got some really nice kills in there. Oh, thanks. A lot of spontaneous stuff happened; it would just happen on that day. We didn’t even think about it, just did it.

Your character breaks a lot of shit in this movie. Smashing car windows, gift shops, glass. How fun was it to destroy all that? That was really, really fun. You just can’t believe it when they tell you, “You get to smash this whole place up.” What?! So fun.

Did it help to relieve any real-life tension? I don’t remember how much tension I was feeling, but I could tell you it’s very cathartic to just smash shit up.

So how do you release tension in real life? I try to exercise it out, with an exorcist. I think that’s just the key way. .

Is it true that you live in Costa Rica now? No, I used to live there. I live in Hawaii now.

That sounds incredible. Yeah, it’s great.

Why Hawaii? I just didn’t want to be living in LA. I’ve never felt a part of Hollywood, in any sense. I love doing this, I love being able to do a movie like this or like The Messenger, or some of these movies that I’ve done, but I’ve never felt like I want to live in LA and want to be in that scene.

Do you surf? I do, but I’m really more into kite surfing.

Do you live on the beach? No, we live more up on the volcano a ways.

So what’s it like coming here? I saw you getting out of the cab in Times Square, and it must be like a complete 180. It’s a big difference, but I have a great time here. I usually come here once a year and watch all the plays that are going on. I really want to see the one that John Crowley directed with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Yeah, I don’t know Hugh Jackman, but I know Daniel Craig, and I really like him, and I also think they are both fantastic actors.

You seem like a guy who could be doing a lot of other things instead of making movies. Love it. I love it now more than I used to. I took quite a while off, and it made me just love it all the more. Although I will say I love theater more than I love any other part of it, because that’s what made me want to become an actor originally. I like the interaction with the audience. But in other ways making movies is great because you don’t have to do a seven-month run of it.

Do you plan on doing any theater? Yeah, my last experience with theater was like, three or four years ago. It was a real fuckin’ piece of shit. I would love to be able to rectify that.