Walton Goggins Biography

Walton Sanders Goggins Jr. (born November 10, 1971) is an American actor. On television, he played Shane Vendrell in The Shield and Boyd Crowder in Justified. He has also appeared in films, such as That Evening Sun, The Apostle, Chrystal, Miracle at St. Anna, Predators, Lincoln, Django Unchained, Machete Kills, American Ultra and The Hateful Eight. He co-produced and starred in the 2001 short film The Accountant, which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

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, he attended Douglas County High School, and moved to Los Angeles, California at the age of nineteen. He attended Georgia Southern University for one year.

Career

When he was 19, Goggins moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. He worked on a valet car parking service for various restaurants in the valley and sold cowboy boots. In 1990, after working in a few acting roles in Georgia, he got his first big break in Murder in Mississippi. While filming, Goggins met and became friends with Ray McKinnon, who played his father in the film, and with whom he began a creative partnership that continues to this day. Goggins played Detective Shane Vendrell in the FX series The Shield (2002-2008).

Goggins and McKinnon formed their production company Ginny Mule Pictures, which produced four films: The Accountant (a short film which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2001), Chrystal (Sundance Dramatic Competition), Randy and the Mob and That Evening Sun (which won the South by Southwest Special Jury Prize 2009). Goggins and McKinnon created the 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 of the FX series Justified, and was a recurring cast member in the first season of the show, while also shooting a major supporting role as a deadly death row inmate being hunted by the titular antagonists in the film Predators. In May 2010, Goggins' character was promoted to the main cast for the second season of Justified. In May 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. In July 2011, Goggins was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role on Justified. He portrayed Billy Crash, a sadistic overseer and slave fighting trainer, in the 2012 film Django Unchained.

From 2012 to 2013, Goggins guest-starred as transgender prostitute Venus Van Damme in the FX 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 Damme" is a play on the undercover name "Cletus Van Damme" used by Goggins' character on The Shield.

In 2015, he played Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight and stars in HBO's television series Vice Principals.

Professional recognition

Goggins received a steady stream of recognition for his professional work. With Ray McKinnon, Lisa Blount and Ginny Mule Pictures, he was recognized by the Spirit of Slamdance Award at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2001 for The Accountant, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2002. Their film Chrystal appeared in the 2004 U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, and the same trio were awarded the Spirit of Slamdance Award again for Randy and the Mob.

Goggins was nominated for a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2009 for his role as Detective Shane Vendrell in The Shield. In the same year, McKinnon, Goggins, Hal Holbrook and the rest of the principal cast of That Evening Sun, won the Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the South by Southwest Film Festival competition.

In 2012, the principal cast of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, including Goggins, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Bruce Dern and others, were nominated for the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards for Best Ensemble Performance.

Goggins' role of Boyd Crowder in Justified received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2011, the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2011, the TV Guide Award for Favorite Villain in 2013, the Online Film & Television Association's Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2011 and 2014, and for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Goggins' role of Venus Van Dam in Sons of Anarchy received nominations for the Online Film & Television Association's Television Award for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2013 and 2014, and for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series in 2014 and 2015.

Personal life

He married filmmaker Nadia Conners in August 2011, and they had a son, Augustus (born February 2011). Goggins is an avid photographer and showcases some of his work on a blog that he created, when he took time off work and traveled across India. He is an avid traveler, spending much of his free time in Cambodia, Central America, Morocco, Thailand and Vietnam.

He is active in various non-profit organizations that range from environmental to humanitarian work. He regularly attends Global Green USA events. He connected to environmental issues through his wife, who directed the documentary The 11th Hour, about the environmental crisis.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	Mr. Saturday Night	Shaky Kid	Uncredited
1992	Forever Young	Gate MP
1994	The Next Karate Kid	Charlie
1997	The Apostle	Sam
1997	Painted Hero	Roddy
1997	Switchback	Bud
1998	Major League: Back to the Minors	Billy "Downtown" Anderson
1999	Wayward Son
2000	The Crow: Salvation	Detective Stan Roberts
2000	Red Dirt	Lee Todd
2000	Shanghai Noon	Wallace
2000	Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder	Almanzo Wilder
2001	Daddy and Them	Tommy Christian
2001	Joy Ride	Cop (DVD additional footage)	Uncredited
2001	The Accountant	Tommy O'Dell	Short film
2002	The Bourne Identity	Research Tech
2002	Beyond the Prairie, Part 2: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder	Almanzo Wilder
2003	House of 1000 Corpses	Deputy Steve Nash
2003	Apple Jack	Moe Danyou	Short film
2004	Chrystal	Larry
2005	The World's Fastest Indian	Marty Dickerson
2006	The Architect	Joe
2007	Randy and The Mob	Tino Armani
2008	Winged Creatures	Zack
2008	Miracle at St. Anna	Nokes
2009	That Evening Sun	Paul Meecham
2009	Damage	Reno
2010	Predators	Stans
2011	Cowboys & Aliens	Hunt
2011	Straw Dogs	Daniel
2012	Lincoln	Wells A. Hutchins
2012	Django Unchained	Billy Crash
2013	Officer Down	Angel / Detective Logue
2013	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	Warden Nigel James
2013	Machete Kills	El Camelen
2015	Mojave	Jim
2015	American Ultra	Laugher
2015	Diablo	Ezra
2015	The Hateful Eight	Chris Mannix

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1989	In the Heat of the Night	Darrell / Robbie Jeffries / Garth Watkins	3 episodes
1990	Murder in Mississippi	Lyle	Television film
1992	Beverly Hills, 90210	Mike Muchin	Episode: "The Pit and the Pendulum"
1992	Stay the Night	Wayne Seagrove	Television film
1993	For Love and Glory	Buck	Television film
1995	JAG	Marine 2nd Lieutenant	Episode: "Desert Son"
1996	Humanoids from the Deep	Rod	Television film
1996	The Cherokee Kid	Jim Bob	Television film
1996	Pacific Blue	Harv	2 episodes
1998	NYPD Blue	Terry	Episode: "Honeymoon at Viagra Falls"
2001	Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man	Billy Weber	Television film
2002-08	The Shield	Detective Shane Vendrell	88 episodes
2007	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Marlon Frost	Episode: "Empty Eyes"
2009	Criminal Minds	John Cooley	Episode: "Demonology"
2009	CSI: Miami	Sean Echols	Episode: "Dissolved"
2010-15	Justified	Boyd Crowder	74 episodes
2012-14	Sons of Anarchy	Venus Van Dam	6 episodes
2013	To Appomattox	Richard Ewell	5 episodes
2014	Community	Mr. Stone	Episode: "Cooperative Polygraphy"
2016-present	Vice Principals	Lee Russell	9 episodes
2016	Six	Richard "Rip" Taggart

Video games

Year	Title	Voice role
1995	Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom	Border World Pilot

Awards and nominations

Year	Nominated Work	Award	Result
2001	Spirit of Slamdance Award for Best Supporting Actor (shared with Ray McKinnon and Lisa Blount)	The Accountant
		Randy and the Mob
2009	Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble	That Evening Sun
	Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama	The Shield
2011	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (2011)	Justified
	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series
	Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film	Justified
2012	San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble	Django Unchained
2013	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Justified
	Online Film & Television Association Award for Best Supporting Actor	Sons of Anarchy
2014	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series	Sons of Anarchy
	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Justified
	Online Film & Television Association Award for Best Supporting Actor	Sons of Anarchy
2015	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Justified
	Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series	Sons of Anarchy