Walton Goggins

Walton Sanders Goggins Jr. (born November 10, 1971) is an American actor. He has starred in various television series, including The Shield (2002–2008), Justified (2010–2015), Vice Principals (2016–2017), The Righteous Gemstones (2019–present), Invincible (2021–present), and Fallout (2024–present). He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Justified, and then later for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Fallout.

Goggins starred in and co-produced the Academy Award-winning short film The Accountant (2001). He has also featured in feature films, such as Predators (2010), Lincoln, Django Unchained (both 2012), The Hateful Eight (2015), Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Tomb Raider, and Ant-Man and the Wasp (all 2018).

Early life
Goggins was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Janet Long and Walton Sanders Goggins Sr. He was raised in Lithia Springs, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, and graduated from Lithia Springs High School and attended Georgia Southern University for a year.

Career
Goggins worked for a valet car parking service and various restaurants in Los Angeles. After starring in a few roles in Georgia, he met Ray McKinnon while filming Murder in Mississippi.

Goggins played Shane Vendrell in the FX drama series The Shield. He formed the production company Ginny Mule Pictures, which produced four films: The Accountant (a short film which won an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film); Chrystal (Sundance Dramatic Competition); Randy and the Mob and That Evening Sun (which won the South by Southwest Special Jury Prize). They later created the drama series Rectify. Goggins was set to play the lead and AMC had bought the pilot script, written by McKinnon, a role which went to Aden Young, when the series later went to SundanceTV.

Goggins played Boyd Crowder in the pilot episode for the FX drama series Justified, while filming a major supporting role as a deadly death row inmate being hunted by the titular antagonists in the film Predators. Before Goggins was cast, Boyd was intended to die in the pilot episode, but Graham Yost kept the character when test audiences selected Goggins for the role. Goggins joined the main cast for the second season in May 2010. In 2011, he appeared in "Code of the West", a commercial for Ram Truck's "Guts & Glory" campaign. He appeared in Cowboys & Aliens as Hunt, a bandit formerly in the employ of the protagonist. Goggins was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role on Justified. He played a sadistic overseer and slave fighting trainer in the western film Django Unchained.

Goggins played a transgender prostitute in the FX drama series Sons of Anarchy. He previously worked with the show's creator, Kurt Sutter, when the latter was a writer and executive producer on The Shield. The name "Venus Van Dam" is a play on the undercover name "Cletus Van Damme" used by The Shield character Shane Vendrell. He played Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight and Lee Russell in the HBO dark comedy series Vice Principals. The New York Times critic Mike Hale wrote, "Walton Goggins makes a habit of being the best thing about the television shows he's in."

In 2018, Goggins played Lawrence in Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Mathias Vogel in Tomb Raider, and Sonny Burch in Ant-Man and the Wasp. He played the lead character in the CBS sitcom The Unicorn. He starred in the comedy series The Righteous Gemstones. In 2020, Goggins voiced part of the true crime podcast Deep Cover: The Drug Wars.

Goggins was cast as Jay Whittle / The Hero in the Amazon Prime Video comedy miniseries I'm a Virgo. In 2024, he starred as Cooper Howard / The Ghoul in the Amazon Prime Video drama series Fallout.

Personal life
Goggins lost his front teeth in a childhood baseball accident when a ball was mistakenly thrown at him.

In 2001, Goggins married Canadian resident Leanne Kaun, who owned a dog-walking business in Laurel Canyon, California. They remained married until her death by suicide on November 12, 2004. Goggins married filmmaker Nadia Conners in August 2011, and the two have a son together.

Goggins showcased some of his photography on a blog, when he took a sabbatical and traveled across India. He is active in various nonprofit organizations that range from environmental to humanitarian work. He is a partner in a spirits company, Mulholland Distilling.