Heywood is one of the three tritagonists in The Shawshank Redemption, alongside Brooks Hatlen and Tommy Williams. He is a member of Red's gang who are long sentence serving convicts.
He was portrayed by William Sadler.
Character Biography[]
He is first seen in 1947 taking bets on which new prisoner would will break on their first night. Heywood bets on an inmate he nicknamed "Fat Ass", and wins the bet by taunting Fat Ass until he breaks and starts loudly crying and begging to be released. This prompts the captain of the guard Hadley to arrive and threaten the prisoners into silence. When Fat Ass continues to cry and beg to be released, Hadley begins to threaten him personally. At this point Heywood is seen quietly urging Fat Ass to stop and shut up. Eventually Hadley, being fed up, drags Fat Ass out of his cell and beats him to death. Later, he hears of Fat Ass' death and is visibly shocked. After Andy gets the other prisoners beer, Heywood tentatively offers it to him and becomes his friend.
Heywood takes another big part in 1954 where one of their friends crack, Brooks Hatlen. As Floyd tells Andy and Red this, they come rushing over to see what the problem is. There, they see Brooks holding a knife to Heywood's throat. Brooks is about to be released from prison after fifty years behind bars, and he believes that killing Heywood would be the only way for him to stay. Andy and Red calm Brooks down and Brooks eventually accepts his fate.
A short while later, Brooks sent his friends a letter explaining his difficulties adapting to life post-prison and how the world had changed so much since he was sent down all those years ago. He reveals how unhappy he is with life and offers a sincere apology to Heywood for the incident with the knife. The gang find out that Brooks ended his own life and are distraught to hear about this revelation. Heywood thought that Brooks was crazy for holding a knife to his throat and went on about how insane he went, however Red tells him to knock it off. Red then says that after being in prison so long he was institutionalized.
Despite not liking Andy at first, he becomes good friends with him as time goes on and grows to admire him. Heywood can be seen to have great respect for Andy when Andy escapes from Shawshank Prison in 1966, as it was he who provided Andy with the rope to make the escape possible. Over the next year, he, Red, and Floyd have conversations and laugh about Andy's story.
Personality[]
Heywood was one of the more obnoxious members of Red's gang but nevertheless was a good person. He was often insensitive and sometimes mean, but regardless he was shown to be a good person with a good heart. Despite being the one to taunt Fat Ass into loudly sobbing and crying and even laughing and celebrating, he urges Fat Ass to stop crying once Hadley arrives. This and the scene showing his shock at Fat Ass dying shows that Heywood did not want Fat Ass to die.
Additionally, after Andy manages to secure some beers for the rest of Red's gang, Heywood recognizes that Andy's work led to their gift and thus he offered Andy a beer as a token of gratitude.