WASHINGTON, DC - Actor Woody Harrelson was in an altercation with a persistent fan on Wednesday night (Oct 6) at the infamous Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC.

The 60-year-old star allegedly punched the man who had taken photos of him and one of his three daughters while they were dining at the hotel's posh rooftop bar.

The man refused to delete the photos when asked and lunged at Harrelson in an attempt to grab his neck, according to a police incident report obtained by entertainment website Page Six, which ran the story on Thursday (Oct 7).

The Cheers actor then reportedly punched the unnamed aggressor, who appeared to be intoxicated, in the neck. The man then fled to his room in the hotel, where he was later questioned by the police.

Charges are pending against the man, but Harrelson was not charged in the incident as investigators said he acted in self-defence, which was corroborated by eyewitnesses.

Harrelson, who plays the villain in the Marvel movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, released last month (Sept), has had several run-ins with the law over the years.

These include allegedly grabbing a photographer's camera in a scuffle in Los Angeles, damaging a black cab in London, and dancing in traffic in Ohio and subsequently getting into an altercation with a police officer when he escaped from a police van.

In recent months, he has been in Washington shooting an HBO series, The White House Plumbers, set in the early 1970s during the notorious Watergate scandal.