Walton Goggins talks with Tonya Mosley about growing up poor in the Deep South, the travel that changed him, and collaborating with his wife. He says his unconventional childhood shaped his approach to acting, from Justified to The White Lotus and The Righteous Gemstones. David Bianculli reviews a new two-part HBO documentary about Paul Reubens, who played Pee-Wee Herman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What shaped Walton Goggins' approach to acting?
Ever.
And so now this is kind of making sense. Is that because you were in a village? You were just going from house to house? Why was that?
Yeah, I mean, you know, my mother wasn't, you know, young, young when she had me. I mean, she had me at, I think she was 23 or something like that. But, you know, my parents got divorced when I was three. And, you know, we lived in Decatur, Georgia, you know, downtown, a little duplex. And then eventually we, you know, got this little house out in Lithia Springs, Georgia.
And, you know, it was everything for my mom to buy a house. And but with that, my mom just had a lot of great friends.
Screens weren't a big part of your life, meaning like you weren't someone who was really into movies or shows growing up, but you always sit on the porch. Was this at your mom's house on the front porch and just talk to people?
Yeah, you know, yeah. No, we didn't go to see a lot of movies. I mean, we went to some seminal movies, but it wasn't certainly a big part of our life. I mean, we had a television, you know, I mean, Sanford and Son and, you know, The Jeffersons and TBS. Those were the ones you were watching? And The Braves, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Still watch them, you know, but but yeah, so we didn't didn't have a lot of screens kind of growing up. That really wasn't a big a big part of our life. My my my aunt Joan and her husband, my uncle Mark, they were both actors in the theater and in a regional kind of equity equity theater space.
usually like all over kind of the south, but they traveled a bit up north, and I grew up watching them on stage.
But this entire group of people that I'm talking to you about, all of them, like you could just hand the microphone to any one of these people, and they could just command the room for hours, and no one interrupted their story because they just wanted to hear it, and it was just a lot of laughter. And a lot of weed, you know. And they were all deeply empathic people.
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Chapter 2: How did Walton Goggins' childhood influence his career?
Chapter 3: What was Walton Goggins' experience on Saturday Night Live?
You got – wait, wait, wait. You got to tell this. So you got in the mail –
I showed up to college like everybody else, and I began getting mail. And one of the first pack of advertising was this offer from American Express. That said, if you get this card, you will get two flight vouchers for $99 east of the Mississippi or $199 west of the Mississippi. And I looked at them and I thought, all I've got to do is get this card and I can go to Los Angeles for $199?
Because the tickets were so expensive back then.
And at that time, you had already had the acting bug, right?
And I already started working. Yeah. I'd done like In the Heat of the Night and then this big movie of the week called Murder, Mississippi about the three slain civil rights workers.
Had it already crystallized in your mind then by that time that acting was the career you wanted to go into?
Certainly, that was going to be a part of my experience was trying it, endeavoring to do it, endeavoring to learn what it is that you're asking yourself to do. Absolutely, I would be lying if I said otherwise. It was really also to have an experience. I just wanted to get out. I just wanted to see the world. I wanted a passport that was filled with stamps from all over the world.
And that's what I wanted. And coming to Los Angeles, being able to at least try to become a storyteller was going to be a part of my journey. And then if that didn't work out, I don't know what I would have done, but it would have I would have had a passport filled with stamps from other countries. That I do know.
How much money did you come to L.A. with in your pocket?
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