We caught up with Goggins recently as he talked about all things Boyd Crowder as the third season comes to an end.

MSN TV: What are your thoughts on this season?
Walton Goggins: I’m really proud of the last five episodes. And when I say I’m proud, I’m not just talking about my participation. I mean I’m proud of everybody. I’m such a fan of all the actors on the show. And we’re so lucky to have Mykelti Williamson join us this year. It’s a season about crossing lines. It’s about people doing things they said they would never do. Boyd is so perplexing to me. He got an opportunity, in some ways, to stand in front of a pulpit and galvanize the people that are behind him to sway the election for sheriff. It was his way of striking back. The thing about Boyd Crowder is that he doesn’t always strike back with a gun. He rarely ever uses his fists unless he needs to. The most powerful weapon in his arsenal is his oratorical skills and his ability to empathize with people. And we’ve seen that on display this season.

Has Boyd evolved as a character?
He has. In the first season, Boyd was comfortable with who he was because he was living a lie. After the first episode, he was almost killed. And I’ve said this before, but because he almost met his maker, he found God. By the end of the first season, his belief in God and everything was shaken. The first half of Season 2 for him was about becoming comfortable with who he is and being honest with himself about who he is. And now in Season 3, it is about him building this criminal empire in a way that is slow and methodical. And he’s hamstrung by his crew. He has Ava (Joelle Carter), which is awesome, and he has Arlo (Raymond J. Barry), who is a lion in winter. And he has his cousin Johnny (David Meunier), who is in a wheelchair. But, it doesn’t matter. Now he has some muscle and he’s slowly building it and, hopefully, for the first time in his life, he’s able to see an endgame.

Would you say Boyd has become a more enlightened criminal?
Human beings are so peculiar. If you drink coffee to wake up in the morning, like I do because I have a 14-month-old son, you can’t drink too much because that’s kind of bad for you. But I’ll still drink too much coffee and I’ll find a way to justify it. For Boyd, that’s the way he approaches building a criminal empire. Initially, I think he was kind of justifying the things that he was doing because he’s a showman, a charlatan. And when he found God, he did the same thing but with different motivations. It’s thinly veiled if you look through it. That’s why at the end of Season 2, he realizes that he’s going to do the things he has to do not because he’s found God or because he’s a narcissist and needs people to follow him. He’s doing it because that’s who he is. In the end, Boyd may get brought down by the very thing that has saved him, and that is love.

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Being bad can cost an arm and a leg. And in the case of Robert Quarles, well … at least he’s still got the leg!

“Justified” concluded its third season on Tuesday night, bringing the 13-episode conflict between U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, meat-cleaving money-hoarder Ellstin Limehouse and the bleach-blond OxyContin-popping gangster Quarles to a boil. In the midst of Limehouse’s slaughterhouse, Quarles tried to kill Givens with that way-too-cool gun up his sleeve, only to find his gun — and, by extension, most of his arm — on the floor, cleaved off in one smooth move by a butcher-knife-wielding Limehouse. It was a glorious, gory way to close out the Quarles story while still leaving the door open for the immensely watchable Neal McDonough in future seasons, and an equally brilliant way to deliver on the bloody promise of Limehouse’s butchering skills, all while keeping Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan firmly in the mix.

There was only one ingredient missing from the equation: Boyd Crowder, the most complicated criminal in Harlan County. Played to morally ambiguous perfection by “The Shield” veteran Walton Goggins, Boyd nearly left season three of “Justified” in a prison cell — all-too-familiar circumstances for the pyrotechnically inclined antihero — and, in the process, unavailable for the final showdown between Raylan, Quarles and Limehouse. To a degree, Boyd’s exclusion from the scene was disappointing for fans wanting to see the character get some much-craved justice against Quarles and Limehouse, two of his chief rivals throughout season three. But Goggins sees it another way.

“In some ways, Boyd being in that scene, that’s what you expected. That’s kind of the payoff that everybody was looking for,” Goggins told MTV News in a recent interview about how the “Justified” finale played out for Boyd. “In some ways, we don’t want to rob people of those expectations, but I believe ['Justified' executive producer Graham Yost] is always looking for different kinds of angles. Boyd was really robbed of his revenge on both [Dickey Bennett, played by 'Lost' alum Jeremy Davies] and on Quarles in a way. I think that’s really going to serve the story going forward.”

You can check out the interview in full over at MTV.com

GQ: The transitions that your character’s made over the years have been really interesting. Boyd isn’t a conflicted figure as much anymore; it’s more that he’s become this criminal mastermind who still feels that he’s a principled figure.
Walton Goggins: Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. Last season was about a man coming to grips with who he was, and that chrysalis can be very painful. But once you’ve crossed that rubicon and you’re OK with who you are, than it’s all about moving forward. For the first time, I think, in Boyd’s life, he’s walking in a straight line and is taking his time. He’s not running; he’s walking. This season is about laying the foundation for what it is that he wants to accomplish and manifesting the person who he is, marrying the poet and the criminal [laughs].

GQ: Boyd seems to be savoring his words more than he’s done before.
Walton Goggins: You think? I don’t know! I think he’s always been a lover of words, and that’s one of the things that I’ve wanted to infuse Boyd with from the pilot — that he’s a person who’s self-taught.

GQ: One of my favorite scenes from the season is when Boyd and Quarles came face-to-face for the first time.
Walton Goggins: It was so delicious. Neal McDonough! Give me Neal McDonough and a glass of wine, and I’ll sit and talk for five hours. He’s such an extraordinary talent, and so focused. He doesn’t waste a movement, very similar to Boyd in that way. We hoped that it would be special. It was written. It was on the page. We kept looking at the words during the construction of the scene, to really flesh it out and have it be an intellectual repartee, and to leave the scene with great respect for one another. I think we were able to accomplish that. There was one line that I threw in at the last minute, as Quarles is walking out the door. I looked to the people in my crew, and I said, “That’s one rare, smart man.” And it’s true! You don’t have to like somebody, but you can still respect him. Harlan County’s big enough to allow its characters to do that.

You can check out the interview in full over at GQ.com

“He is the last person I expect to see walk through that door,” Walton Goggins tells TVLine of the rife-with-tension reunion. “In some ways, I don’t even believe it, not until I get up next to him. And the only thing I want to see him do is f—king die.”

Alas, as mentioned, with Dickie comes the chance to lay hands on heaps of cash. And that short-term play may be enough to afford the last surviving Bennett a (perhaps brief) new lease on life. “We will dance, but it won’t be a waltz” is how Goggins winningly previews the iffy alliance.

But Boyd’s ragtag team of robbers are not the only ones getting a bead on the bank. The increasingly unpredictable Robert Quarles, with Limehouse’s backing, is hot to pinch the payday (provided he can escape his naked-and-chained confines), Wynn Duffy is working off his own agenda, and of course the law – in the form of one U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens – would love nothing more than to get the drop on this all-star congregation of ne’er-do-wells.

“You have four people playing chess on a board built for two, with moves coming from every direction,” Goggins says of Justified‘s crowd of crooks. “And all of that will come to a head [in the finale].”
Of course, at Boyd’s side as he barters this deal with the little Bennett devil is Ava, who “stepped up, in a major way” this season, Goggins raves. “It’s a testament to Joelle [Carter] and who she is as an actress, and how strong she is as a person, that she’s able to imbue Ave with this soft, compassionate side… and this very, very violent side. That’s indicative of a woman who deserves a seat at the table, and [Joelle] really knocked it out of the park.”

Will that rather unexpected romance survive next week’s finale unscathed? (After all, Carter told TVLine that the finale is a “big” episode for her and Ava, which frankly got us kinda worried.)
“The real reason why we’re all here is love, born out of violence,” Goggins hedges. “So we’ll see how it all shakes out.”

You can check out the interview in full over at TVLine.com

Boyd Crowder seems to be a guy who can’t make up his mind between Jesus or jail. Tell me how you see the character.
I think Boyd Crowder is a man who is comfortable with extremes. The first season was about exploring both of those extremes — an agnostic, and then finding God. A man like Boyd, it was about being honest with himself as to who he is, and being OK with that. He’s a criminal, don’t mistake it, and this season is about Boyd honoring his own conclusions about himself. I think he sees himself as a person who brings along the poor and downtrodden with him. He’s part Vic Mackey, part Nucky Thompson, part Peter Pan and part Robin Hood, and he’s OK with that.

You seem to enjoy playing bad guys with complex issues. Why is that?
I think that compassion and empathy are the recipes for success when playing a character with questionable morals. I think I can generate some empathy personally because I’m compassionate. I’m a good listener as a human being, and the same thing applies when you’re playing these people, people who at first glance are written off, “this is who this guy is.”

You have a distinct Southern accent, and with all the stereotyping of Southerners that goes on in the movies and on TV, I wonder if that was a problem when you got started in the business?
Absolutely. The first week I was [in L.A.], somebody said the first thing you have to do is lose that accent. They didn’t realize that accent put food on the table; they were looking for the stupid Southern racist, and I got those roles, and made good money doing it. Then, I felt I was not going to perpetuate that stereotype anymore. It’s ironic that this accent I’ve been running away from, I’ve come back to it, and met with so much success. It’s sweet to be an ambassador for this section of the country.

You can check out the interview in full over at NewsDay.com

The A.V. Club: You were originally supposed to die at the end of the Justified pilot. Was coming back to life complicated, in terms of other stuff you had going on?

Walton Goggins: I was doing a movie, Predators, and we had already left Hawaii when the show started, so I was able to fly back and forth and just be in town long enough to do a scene here or there. So that’s why, in season one, Boyd was just in every two episodes or one episode, and just kind of had a scene. So I was able to pop in and out.

At the time, I was actually under a contract to star in a show that my partner and I sold to AMC called Rectify, and that prevented me from signing on as a regular early on. Then we got the word, maybe episode nine of Justified, that Rectify wasn’t going to go full with AMC. [Justified] laid out the invitation to me, and I gratefully accepted it, because I was having so much fun. And as it turns out, my partner is doing Rectify for Sundance.

AVC: What was that experience like, to be so liked for season one, but also to be limited in how much you could be in it?

WG: It was so unexpected. I had no expectations for this experience, beyond the love of the word and the people I was working with. I didn’t think about it, because I didn’t have skin in the game. I didn’t have a stake in its longevity early on. The only thing I thought about, really, was getting to work with Tim [Olyphant, as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens] every day and loving it, and [writer-producer] Graham [Yost]. These scripts would come down, and we’d have conversations about them. To have access to work is one thing for an actor; to have access to good work is another thing, and this was good work. I came back in earnest around episode nine, and that’s when Boyd really took off—nine, 10, 11, 12, 13—those last four or five episodes was really when I was available, I was here. And Raylan and Boyd could begin their dance in earnest.

AVC: Especially in season two and three, you’re kind of in your own shadow-show within the show, where you’re doing your own thing and have your own plot. Can that be a little isolating, to be outside of the main storylines?

WG: Well, I think it is. I think those storylines run tandem. I think the same thing with The Shield, with all the different characters, from CC [CCH Pounder] to myself to… Every one of us would have our own story. And yet the strike team would have the procedural, or CC and Jay [Karnes] would have the procedural.

In this show, you have a crime on some level; it’s kind of solved every week. It’s not as clear-cut as The Shield, but that’s not why people watch this show. People watch this show to see the development of the characters. In my world, I feel like I’m participating in the ongoing story, and that’s something people really want to see. It’s not when Raylan is taking down a bad guy that people are interested in Raylan. It’s when he’s dealing with his ex-wife, or when he’s dealing with Boyd or Mags Bennett or Neal McDonough, because you know he’s going to get to deal with them again next week.

So I don’t know. In some ways, I quite liked being the satellite storyline, because I think that it’s in some ways purer. It’s not diluted with the need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But it is ongoing in the beginning, middle, and end. It can last over 13 episodes. In some ways, I feel like we’re not even in the middle yet, and we’ve been going on now for 39 episodes, so far.

You can check out the interview in full over at AVClub.com