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Woody Harrelson Reflects on Being College Pals With Mike Pence: ‘I Actually Quite Liked Him’

The celebrated actor opened up to Kimmel about his time attending Hanover College with the vice president, but said today he has ‘that kind of fervor that you really don’t want.’

Before he became one of your favorite movie-star stoners, Woody Harrelson was a pretty religious dude.

Harrelson was a theology student and subsequently attended Hanover College on a Presbyterian scholarship. But while at Hanover, he fell in love with acting, eventually graduating with a degree in theater and English in 1983. Interestingly enough, one of his classmates at Hanover was our uber-devout Vice President Mike Pence, who graduated from the college in 1981 and subsequently served as Hanover’s admissions counselor from 1981 to 1983.

On Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday, the comedian asked Harrelson if he knew Pence while the two were at Hanover (not too big a stretch, since it’s a tiny liberal arts college whose undergraduate student body totals around 1,100 students).

“I knew him, yeah. We were both very religious,” Harrelson said. “It was a Presbyterian college at the time, and I was there on a Presbyterian scholarship, and he was involved with the church activities.”

When Kimmel asked him about how he earned a Presbyterian scholarship, Harrelson explained, “I was actually considering being a minister and then I just kind of went a different way.”

“Yeah, you did,” Kimmel replied.

As far as any memories he has of young Mike Pence, Harrelson recalled, “I actually quite liked him. I thought he was a pretty good guy. He’s, you know, very religious. Very committed. Seeing as how I’m not quite in that ballpark now, I don’t know how we’d get along, ’cause I think he’s still quite religious and just a whole different brand of religious. That kind of fervor that you really don’t want.”

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