Woody Harrelson tells us why they cut Cletus' curly hair for Venom: Let There Be Carnage

For those that stuck around to see Venom’s post-credits scene in 2018, the biggest surprise wasn’t the blatant sequel bait in the form of Woody Harrelson’s carnage-pledging Cletus Kasady—it was the luscious curls on top of his head.

Throughout the Marvel comics, the man-who-would be-Carnage most frequently sports a shock of messy orange hair, and said hair’s curliness has varied from illustrator to illustrator over the years. But when Harrelson’s Kasady appeared behind bars in Venom’s stinger sporting a wig of red ringlets, it caught some viewers off guard, and prompted laughs from others.

In this writer’s estimation, the wig worked—it seemed to meet Venom on its own gonzo wavelength, and suggested that Harrelson would be putting a distinct spin on Kasady, a convict who becomes the infamous supervillain Carnage after his body plays host to the same alien symbiote that created Venom. Of course, the bold styling choice had its detractors in long-time fans of the character, not least of which was Harrelson himself.

In short, the curls don’t stick around for the sequel. Though Harrelson’s Kasady returns for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, promising a monster mash showdown between Kasady’s alter ego and Eddie Brock’s (Tom Hardy), his hair’s been given a noticeable trim. During Harrelson’s virtual press rounds for the film, The A.V. Club asked the actor what happened to the wig this time around and his answer was refreshingly frank: “I didn’t like it—I didn’t like that wig. I just wanted something a little more realistic.”