Walton Goggins
Walton Goggins is an accomplished American actor born on November 10, 1971, in Birmingham, Alabama. He gained widespread recognition for his roles in notable television dramas such as *The Shield* (2002–2008), where he portrayed the complex character Shane Vendrell, and *Justified* (2010–2015), in which he played the charismatic antagonist Boyd Crowder. Goggins has also appeared in critically acclaimed films including *Django Unchained* (2012) and *The Hateful Eight* (2015), showcasing his versatility as an actor.
After starting his career in Georgia, Goggins moved to Los Angeles to pursue more opportunities, eventually garnering acclaim for both his television and film performances. Throughout his career, he has earned nominations for prestigious awards, including an Emmy nomination for his work on *Justified*. Goggins's ability to portray complex, often troubled characters has made him a respected figure in the entertainment industry.
In addition to his professional achievements, Goggins has navigated personal challenges, having experienced the loss of his first wife in 2004 and later marrying producer Nadia Connors in 2011. Together, they have a son named Augustus Somerset. Goggins continues to be a prominent figure in both film and television, with recent roles in series like *The Righteous Gemstones* and the miniseries *George & Tammy*.
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Walton Goggins
Actor
- Born: November 10, 1971
- Place of Birth: Birmingham, Alabama
Contribution: Walton Goggins is an Emmy-nominated American actor. He is known for his television roles on dramas such as The Shield (2002–2008), Justified (2010–2015), and Sons of Anarchy (2012–2015), as well as parts in films such as Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015), and John Bronco (2020).
Background
Walton Sanders Goggins Jr. was born on November 10, 1971, in Birmingham, Alabama, son of Walton and Janet Goggins. The family relocated to Lithia Springs, Georgia, when Goggins was a child.
Goggins was born into a family of entertainers. An uncle and an aunt acted in theater, and a second aunt represented musician B. B. King and actor Phyllis Diller. In the early 1980s, Goggins and his mother became state champion clog dancers, later enabling Goggins to open for King at Fulton County Prison in Atlanta.
As a teenager, Goggins became interested in performing for a living and sought out local talent agent Shay Griffin. However, he put his dream on hold until after he graduated from Lithia Springs High School.
Career
With Griffin's help, Goggins began appearing in small parts in television shows and local films in Georgia. His first noteworthy performance was in the 1990 NBC television film Murder in Mississippi.
Goggins next landed various roles on the CBS drama In the Heat of the Night between 1989 and 1992. Unsatisfied with the sluggishness of his burgeoning career, however, he left Georgia for the entertainment hotbed of Los Angeles. There, work slowly picked up in the mid- to late 1990s, with guest appearances on television programs such as JAG in 1995, The Sentinel in 1996, and NYPD Blue in 1998.
In 1997, Goggins appeared in Robert Duvall's drama The Apostle as Sam, a friend of Duvall's titular character. The film earned Goggins national attention, and he was then cast in a main role as Almanzo Wilder in the 2000 CBS television movie Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder. That year, he also appeared in the films Shanghai Noon, Red Dirt, and The Crow: Salvation.
In 2001, Goggins teamed up with friend and actor Ray McKinnon to produce The Accountant, a comedy short about two brothers who hire an accountant to help alleviate their burdens. Goggins and McKinnon starred in the film, and it performed well, eventually winning an Academy Award for best live-action short film.
After appearing in the 2001 CBS television special Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man, Goggins landed a life-changing role when he was cast as corrupt police detective Shane Vendrell on the FX police drama The Shield, which premiered in March 2002. The show revolved around Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) of the Los Angeles Police Department's Strike Team. Throughout the series, Vendrell disagrees with Mackey's ideas of justice, though he eventually displays his own loose-cannon brand of law enforcement, causing the friends to drift apart.
Critics highly praised Goggins for the complexity of his performances throughout The Shield's seven-season run. Because he was part of the show's main cast, The Shield consumed nearly the whole of his career from 2002 to 2008. However, he was able to act in a few supporting roles in films and other television shows during that time. Goggins appeared briefly in the action film The Bourne Identity (2002) and played a supporting role in Rob Zombie's independent horror film House of 1000 Corpses (2003) before returning to television with guest spots on Hawaii in 2004 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2007. By the time The Shield ended in 2008, it had won numerous accolades, including the 2003 Golden Globe Award for best drama.
Goggins returned to television in 2010 when he began appearing in a main role on the FX crime drama Justified. The show, based on the works of writer Elmore Leonard, revolves around US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a lawman who returns to his homeland of Harlan County, Kentucky. Goggins portrays Boyd Crowder, the show's primary antagonist. Crowder is a charismatic and loquacious criminal who, at different times, has been a white-supremacist criminal, a self-made preacher, and the head of the local drug empire.
Though initially hired to star in only the pilot of the show, as his character was intended to die at the end of the episode, Goggins so impressed showrunner Graham Yost with his performance that he was invited to return as a recurring character throughout the show's first season. The complicated adversarial relationship between Givens and Crowder quickly became the linchpin of the series, and in 2011, Goggins joined the main cast as a regular. That year, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series.
Goggins soon began receiving offers for more high-profile features. In 2010, he played a supporting role in the science-fiction action film Predators, which he followed up with a part in the sci-fi western film Cowboys & Aliens (2011) and a minor role in the remake of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 drama Straw Dogs (2011).
In 2012, Goggins appeared in two films that received Academy Award nominations for best picture, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. His appearance in the latter drew particular praise. The following year, Goggins had turns in the films GI Joe: Retaliation, Officer Down, and Machete Kills. Meanwhile, he had another notable television role on Sons of Anarchy from 2012 to 2014, guest starring as a transgender prostitute.
Goggins had a productive 2015, with roles in four films that year. He had supporting roles in the crime thriller Mojave and the comedy American Ultra and costarred with Scott Eastwood in the Western Diablo. However, it was another Western, Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, that would become one of Goggins's best-known film appearances. His supporting turn as a former Confederate soldier and newly appointed sheriff who gets wrapped up in a deadly confrontation was acknowledged by many critics as a highlight within a star-studded ensemble cast. The part considerably raised Goggins's profile in Hollywood.
In 2016, Goggins starred alongside Danny McBride in the HBO series Vice Principals; it received relatively strong reviews, and a second season aired the following year. Goggins won a Critics' Choice Television Award for best supporting actor in a comedy for his work on the show. He also appeared on the History Channel military drama Six from 2017 to 2018. Film roles during this period included supporting parts in the independent film Three Christs (2017) and the blockbusters Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) and Tomb Raider (2018). He also had a notable role as a comical villain in the superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). In 2019, Goggins appeared in the drama Them That Follow and also appeared in three television productions: the espionage series Deep State, the comedy The Righteous Gemstones, and the sitcom The Unicorn. He starred in the latter as a widowed father who reenters the dating scene, and his performance was well received by critics.
Goggins kicked off the 2020s by starring as the title character in the short comedy film John Bronco (2020), a role he later returned to the following year in John Bronco Rides Again (2021). He also appeared in films like Words on Bathroom Walls (2020), Fatman (2020), Dreamin' Wild (2022), and The Uninvited (2024). On television, Goggins played Earl "Peanutt" Montgomery in the miniseries George & Tammy (2022-2023), Jay Whittle in I'm a Virgo (2023), and The Ghoul/Cooper Howard in Fallout (2024-).
Impact
Though he was slow to land significant roles and gain recognition, Goggins proved himself as a talented supporting actor. He became known for delivering intense, complex portrayals of troubled characters such as Detective Shane Vendrell on The Shield and Boyd Crowder on Justified. Goggins's roles on these shows solidified his standing with both fans and critics, leading to more prominent film roles as well as further lead turns on television.
Personal Life
Goggins was married to Leanne Goggins from 2001 until her death in 2004. In 2011, he married producer and director Nadia Connors, with whom he had a son, Augustus Somerset.
Bibliography
Fine, Marshall. "Interview: Actor Walton Goggins Gets Justified." Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 10 July 2013.
Goggins, Walton. Interview by Eric Estrin. LA Times Magazine. Los Angeles Times Communications, 3 July 2011. Web. 18 July 2013.
Goggins, Walton. "A Son of the South with Many Accents." Interview by Jeremy Egner. New York Times. New York Times, 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.
Huver, Scott. "Why Walton Goggins Is a Bona Fide Unicorn, On Screen and Off." CNN, 26 Sept. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/entertainment/walton-goggins-unicorn/index.html. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.
Nussbaum, Emily. "Trigger-Happy." Rev. of Justified. New Yorker 21 Jan. 2013: 76–77. Print.
Schilling, Mary Kaye. "Criminal Appeal: Walton Goggins Defends the South's Good Name, in Bad-Guy Roles." New York 14 Jan. 2013: 68. Print.
Thomas, Kaitlin. "The Unicorn's Walton Goggins Revisits His Most Memorable Roles, From The Shield to Sons of Anarchy." TV Guide, 23 Sept. 2019, www.tvguide.com/news/walton-goggins-the-unicorn-career-the-shield-justified. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.
"Walton Goggins." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0324658. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.