Woody Harrelson has revealed he had misgivings about starring in the original Zombieland movie.

The Hollywood star said his first response to the script was “has it come to this?”.

Harrelson said the script for the 2009 hit was languishing at the bottom of his pile of offers and he avoided reading it.

He eventually took part in the film and now the sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap, alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.

Harrelson said: “I had that script – the first one – just sitting at the bottom of a pile of scripts.

“I just wasn’t getting to it and my agent kept bothering me and I was like, ‘zombies, has it come to this?’.

“At the time there wasn’t a big zombie craze like there is now with Walking Dead and all that.”

The actor eventually agreed and said he felt from the performances and the quality of the script that it could be a success.

He said: “We went to that screening, it was a huge 1,500-seat theatre or something, like a rock concert.

“I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ So that was the first reckoning that, ‘Oh my God, this could be a good thing’.”

Harrelson plays Tallahassee in the film, set in a post-apocalyptic world.

Zombieland: Double Tap is in cinemas from Friday October 18.