RUTHE STEIN, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Maybe it was because Woody Harrelson was in a peaceful mood after leading a 1 1/2-hour yoga class in Noe Valley Saturday morning. Or maybe it was that he had been stuck in traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge the night before and realized it's no fun even with the view.

Whatever his reason, Harrelson decided to apologize for the first time for the massive traffic jam he caused last year when he and other demonstrators climbed a Golden Gate Bridge cable with a banner protesting logging in Northern California.
``I apologize in the sense that I feel I didn't really think (the protest) through or think what the ramifications would be,'' the actor said Saturday.

``We were doing what we thought was right, but unfortunately some people got caught in the middle.''

Harrelson, who had blamed the Highway Patrol for the traffic mess, said he recently decided he was being ``kind of hypocritical. I had no desire to take responsibility for the traffic, but when I heard about the couple (Susan Zitron and Don Woods) who met because of it and are getting married, I wanted to take responsibility for that.''

If he had the protest to do over, Harrelson said he would have responded immediately to the Highway Patrol's threat to start closing lanes. ``I should have gotten on the radio and talked them out of it.''

Harrelson. 35, as Emmy-award winner for his role as the lovable bartender in ``Cheers'' and an Oscar nominee for ``The People vs. Larry Flynt,'' wants it known that he still likes coming to the Bay Area though he's aware that ``I alienated some people here and probably some people still harbor a grudge.''

Certainly not anybody who showed up early Saturday at the Frankel Bros. Hemp Outfitters on 24th Street in San Francisco to take a yoga class from Harrelson, a certified instructor. His being there was related to another of his causes. Through his attempts to legalize hemp -- which comes from the same plant as marijuana but contains only a fraction of the psychoactive ingredient that gives marijuana users a high -- Harrelson got to know Dave Frankel.

``Dave is my lawyer. I get in so much trouble all the time, it seems like I have a whole wealth of lawyers, but as far as hemp goes, Dave's the one,'' said Harrelson, who was charged earlier this year with growing hemp in Kentucky.

When Frankel and his brother Bob wanted to open a store specializing in clothes made of hemp (because it's illegal to grow it here, all the fabric must be imported), Harrelson gave them money and said he would come to the grand opening over the weekend and also chatted with people in the neighborhood. ``Woody has never failed to keep a promise to us,'' said Dave Frankel. ``He's really a good person.''

Arriving 45 minutes late, Harrelson, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt emblazoned with an upside down cow (which had something to do with a protest against milk), he disarmed everyone in the class by saying, ``I have no excuse -- I'm just an a-- .'' He immediately got the 15 yoga students, chosen through a lottery at the store and a KFOG radio promotion, taking deep breaths and long stretches.

When a woman came in after all the exercise mats had been taken, he gave her his and worked out on the hard floor.

Harrelson demonstrated some contorted positions, including squatting down with his feet facing out, but he wasn't a tough taskmaster. ``Hey, if it's too much for you, don't sweat it,'' he said at one point.

He walked around the room to make sure everyone had their fingers locked properly behind their backs. ``Get your hands up higher,'' he told one woman, adjusting her long ponytail to get it out of the way.

After putting them through what he called ``my hardest stretch,'' he had them exhale with a big sigh. ``One of the meanings of compassion is shared pain, so let's all share our pain,'' Harrelson said.

The session ended with everyone in a big circle chanting ``Om,'' after which Harrelson signed their exercise mats.

``The class was much more intense than I'm used to,'' said Karin Conn, who has been studying yoga for years. ``It was a joy to take it with Woody and hear all his silly interjections.''

Sipping a vegan smoothie, Harrelson said one of the appeals of yoga is to get him to relax. ``I've got miles to go.''

His activism is a major cause of stress. ``I'd much prefer to hang out in Costa Rica on a beach with my family,'' said Harrelson, who has a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old daughter with girlfriend Laura Louie.

But he genuinely believes in the causes he supports and hopes that his celebrity status will call attention to them. ``I don't consider being a celebrity is good only to get into restaurants,'' he said.

However, Harrelson doesn't want to be at the center of controversy, ``Far be it from me to actually shut my mouth. But I do realize that after a while people finally get tired of hearing from you. I may be approaching that point or I may already have exceeded it.''

As far as he knows, his causes haven't hurt him in Hollywood ``but it's not like someone tells you that's why you're not hired.'' He is getting more movie roles than he ever expected to. This fall, he'll be seen playing a journalist assigned to Bosnia in ``Welcome to Sarajevo.'' He just finished ``Palmetto, a film noir with Elisabeth Shue and is off to Australia to be in ``A Thin Red Line,'' the first movie Terrence Malick has made since ``Days of Heaven'' almost 20 years ago. ``Now there's a guy who's really relaxed. That's why he couldn't stay in Hollywood,'' Harrelson said.

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WOODY JUST KEEPS GETTIN' INTO MISCHIEF

Woody Harrelson is turning into the Peck's Bad Boy of Hollywood. The actor can't seem to stay out of trouble. Here are some of his delinquencies, big and small:

-- February 1991: Harrelson loses his place as a Mardi Gras grand marshal after being spotted supporting a California rally against the Persian Gulf War.

-- September 1993: Filming ``The Cowboy Way'' in New Mexico, Harrelson is supposed to run out of a house wearing only cowboy boots and a cowboy hat covering his privates. On the third take, he intentionally drops his hat.

-- December 1993: A 60-foot billboard goes up over Times Square to promote ``The Cowboy Way.'' It shows the well-endowed Harrelson in just a cowboy hat and skintight Calvin Klein briefs -- a parody of the Marky Mark Calvin ads.
 (Correction: the billboard is part of the film plot---C.H.)

-- June 1996: Harrelson is charged with illegally growing hemp on a plot he owns in Kentucky. He maintains that he planted the seeds to challenge the state's anti-marijuana law for not distinguishing between drug-grade marijuana and the low-THC variety of the plant.

-- November 1996: Harrelson is arrested for climbing a Golden Gate Bridge cable with a banner protesting the logging of redwoods in Humboldt County. The protest ties up traffic on the bridge for hours.

-- March 1997: When Larry Flynt can't get a ticket to the Oscar ceremony, Harrelson, who plays him in ``The People vs. Larry Flynt,'' takes the controversial publisher as his guest -- though many in Hollywood would just as soon not see Flynt there.