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

Question: After Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) last season, were you surprised that they found a criminal element just as interesting, for this season?

WALTON GOGGINS: Yeah, they had to find a criminal element that would interface with Raylan on one side of the law and me on the other side of the law. It’s tough. It took two actors to make up for Margo. I think I learned, early on, back on The Shield, the recipe for longevity is not trying to outdo yourself from the year before. It’s just a matter of being authentic and doing the best you can, and you hope that people watch it and like it. For us, we know where our bread is buttered, and we live by the written word of the critic. That’s how shows build a critical mass on cable. So, we hope that the critics like it.

Where is Boyd Crowder at this season, in his journey?

GOGGINS: Boyd is a very thoughtful guy. He’s a thinker, and he’s a very patient guy. He’s trying to lay the foundation for a criminal empire that is sustainable, and not rush into one direction or another, but build it block by block. If you look at it, Boyd’s crew is not that deep and not that strong. Cousin Johnny is in a wheelchair. He’s a bad-ass, but he’s in a wheelchair. Arlo is really cool, but he’s a lion in winter for sure. And I’ve got my beautiful girlfriend, Ava. It’s a matter of taking the loyalty of this family and this group of people, and building on that. It’s interesting.

Do you think that Boyd’s rise to criminal kingpin was always inevitable, or is he just seeing an opening and taking advantage of it?

GOGGINS: I don’t know. In Season 2, Boyd was about really coming to terms with who he is, as a human being. Prior to that, he was a guy who lived in the extremes, wherever the pendulum swung. If he was a coffee drinker, he was going to drink seven cups of coffee a day. But, after Season 2, he’s become a man of balance. For him, this season, it’s different because he’s different. He sees things differently. There’s no way he could have done what he’s setting out to do this season, in Season 1 or in Season 2, because he just wanted to be left alone. Now, he not only sees an opening, but he’s really being honest about who he is and there’s no other option for him. This is his life, but he’s accepted that this is his life. And now that he’s accepted it, he’s going to do it smartly.

Boyd has a great speech I think in the “Devil You Know” episode where he’s talking to Devil and he says, “Which Boyd Crowder am I being asked to follow?” And Boyd says, “What if I told you I was the man who recruited you in that church and I also told you I was the man who got shot, who found God, who betrayed his father and I was the man who killed me and gotten a whole bunch of men killed.” And he says, “I can’t discard my past anymore than these tattoos.” Does he see himself as all those things?
I don’t think that he is always so truthful with himself and that was a very truthful moment. It’s rare that you get to glimpse that with Boyd, that kind of honesty. I think that the roadmap of his life is tattooed on his body—from the swastika to the JC [Jesus Christ], which is above the bullet hole. I think he’s come to terms with all of it and it’s like, “Well, I can’t run from that past, but I’m not that person anymore, and that helped me get to where I am.”

I think that’s the evolution of humanity. We can only transcend by truly coming to terms with where we come from. That’s what I felt Boyd was saying in that moment. He’s not saying I’m a racist or I’m a born-again Christian. He is saying I’m all of it, everything; I’ve worn all of those coats to get to this moment right here just to shed them.

You ask some deep questions man. This may require a glass of wine.

That’s what I need watching the show! So this season he is sort of getting the gang back together; he has some real goals.
He has some recruiting to do. Don’t you think? [Laughs.] I mean his band of outlaws is pretty thin, but I think that for Boyd this season is about putting in a foundation and finding that cornerstone on which to build his empire. Hopefully once he gets to his empire it will be earned and not something that comes easy. He’s starting from the ground up and he’s a CEO of a criminal corporation and he’s never been that as a real leader, a real player before. So his attitude has changed, his behavior changes. Everything changes. He has his swagger back, but it’s a different swagger.

How would you describe his new swagger?
I think he will find humor in the strangest of places and he will find sadness in the strangest of places. He is still a showman, but his audience has heard all of his homilies, so now he’s forced to motivate people in a different way, in an authentic way, in a real way.

And speaking of the whole criminal enterprise thing, he has a lot of competition this year.
He has a lot of competition, man. Yeah, a lot of competition and a few mouths to feed, you know?

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

ASSIGNMENT X: Going into Season Three, did you think from where Boyd started, as a pretty horrible-seeming person, that he was going to turn into such a gray antihero?A

WALTON GOGGINS: I think he’s a man who’s sort of come to terms with who he is, and for the first time in his life, he’s on even ground. Is he a bad guy who does good things, is he a good guy who does bad things? I don’t know. I think he’s a very complicated guy and I think at times he can offend people, and I think at times he can generate great sympathy and empathy from people, and that’s interesting to me in a person, and that’s interesting to me in a character.

AX: How do you think Boyd see himself at this point?

GOGGINS: I think for the first time in his life, he sees himself without judgment. I don’t think he labels himself one way or the other. I think that he understands that he is a criminal at heart. He was raised a certain way, his options were very limited because of where he came from and his lack of pedigree and [lack of] access to money, and I think that he may not have raised himself out of poverty – he’s raised himself mentally out of poverty. He’s a self-taught man and a troubadour and a leader and [he thinks] that. “In order to live, this is what I have to do because this is who I am, and there’s no turning back for me, but I can do it in a way that I’ve never done it before,” and I think that’s interesting.

Love has informed that, and his love for another person has informed this change in him, and I think his great compassion and empathy for other people has allowed him to move in this direction. So in some ways, he’s Tony Soprano meets Nucky Thompson meets Peter Pan meets Robin Hood. Any actor worth his weight in salt would just die to get to interpret a guy like that.

AX: There’s an episode where Boyd saves his own life and gets a lot of cash by double-crossing his partners on a mine theft job. They were trying to kill him, so he kills them, but he lets Shelby, the mine employee played by Jim Beaver, live, even though Shelby can identify him. That seemed very telling.

GOGGINS: Absolutely. And then Boyd goes home to Ava [the woman he loves, played by Joelle Carter], and he says, “People have been telling me this and this and this, and it’s taken me kind of listening to all of that to come up with my own definition for myself.” And it’s also a guy who hated his father [played by M.C. Gainey], as Raylan hates his father.

We mirror each other more often than we don’t. And there’s something between Boyd and his cousin Johnny [played by David Meunier] where Boyd sees his father for who he really was, and says, “Well, I might not have agreed with everything that he said; there was value in things that he said.” And for a character to be able to say that on television, to create a television show to give space for that, to allow space for that, is incredible. And so that’s kind of where he is.

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

True to his character on “Justified,” Timothy Olyphant was a man of few words. At a Television Critics Association press conference for the third season, I tried asking Olyphant about Raylan’s abilities after being shot. Things got a bit more lively when I brought Walton Goggins into the conversation.

Crave Online: Can you talk about playing an injured Raylan this year and how long does that keep hindering him?

Timothy Olyphant: It’s pretty much the same deal except for, in one or two scenes, I had to sit in the makeup trailer a little longer, but, otherwise, it’s business as usual.

Crave Online: But in the first episode back, he has a tougher time getting around and handling himself in fights.

Timothy Olyphant: Yeah, he does.

Crave Online: Is that interesting or fun for you to play?

Timothy Olyphant: You know, the whole thing is fun, you know. It’s just a great job, and as long as he’s breathing, it’s pretty fun.

Crave Online: For Walton too, how is Boyd and Raylan’s relationship this year?

Walton Goggins: It’s as contentious and lovely as it’s always been. I think one of the greatest things that happened this season for me is speaking to a writer and talking about a scene and saying, “You know, these guys, they really like each other.” And the writer looked at me and said, “You know, when I had this conversation with Tim, Tim says, ‘You know, these guys really hate each other.’”

And I think that’s really interesting because I think that’s where Tim kind of comes from, and it’s certainly kind of where I come from, and never the twain shall meet, really. And I hope that they never do because I never really know what Tim is going to do, and, hopefully, he never really knows what I’m going to do.

Crave Online: Is this session the first time you and Tim have talked about that?

Timothy Olyphant: We haven’t spoken about it.

Walton Goggins: We haven’t really spoken about it, no.

Crave Online: Timothy, why do you think they hate each other?

Timothy Olyphant: I actually have no idea, but I’m always just doing whatever it takes to get some material that makes it keep going. The fact is it’s just a pleasure working with Walt. It just never stops becoming entertaining, trying to figure out how to do the same scene over and over again in a new, fresh way with surprising results.

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Is it true the original plan was for Raylan to kill Boyd in the pilot episode of the series?

“That was the foregone conclusion going in. Boyd dies at the end of the short story, Fire in the Hole, by Elmore Leonard, which was the source material for the series. So that was to be the beginning, the middle and the end of Boyd, that one episode. It was a one-off. But there was something there. Casting is such an ephemeral thing. But for me, with Tim, I knew the first time we read through it and the very first time we started shooting that we had a chemistry that was pretty extraordinary. So instead of killing Boyd, we put our heads together and we decided, ‘Let’s see where this goes.’ So Boyd lives.”

Boyd is so unpredictable. He started out as a white supremacist criminal, then reinvented himself as a born-again evangelist; he tried to go straight, then rejoiced when he broke bad again. He has a code, but the rules to his code shift with the wind. Have you figured him out yet?

“I would say he’s a man who likes to live in extremes. And the changes of those extremes bring about a new set of moral principles. He’s only comfortable on the fringes. He’s a showman, and it’s very rare that you get a straight sentence out of him. When you do, hopefully it’s impactful. But I really don’t know how Boyd is going to react in any situation, even with the words on the page. It really only materializes once we’re at work and actually shooting the scene.”

Well, if you don’t know how a scene will play out until you do it, imagine how interested the writers must be, waiting to see what this wild man will do next?

“They really never know either till we shoot it. But I try not to characterize Boyd as a wild man.”

No, you’re the wild man.

“Me? Like, Walton Goggins, me? I’m the wild man? I don’t know. Maybe. I think it’s more about, ‘This is the story, and we’ve got to get from A to B. But who knows the mode of transportation? Are we going to walk to get there or are we going to take an airplane?’ I remember one episode from Season 2. Boyd is dealing with people who want to rob the mine, and they want to kill him. When he gets this information, he’s cool about it, like nothing happened. And I kept playing around with the line, improvising different things, and then I got it: ‘You want to make a living in this business, you’ve got to know your ABCs: Always Be Cool.’ That was the motto of my graduating class, Lithia Springs High School, Class of ’89. The point is, you never know where the right thing to do or say will come from till you get there.”

Is it liberating to be able to channel all of your dark impulses into your performance?

“It’s better than having a therapist. It’s so nice to come home every night with a grin on my face.”

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1. What was it about Boyd Crowder that made you want to play this character?

It wasn’t what was on the page initially but it was the conversations about what this character could be that made me want to play him. I’m a fan of Elmore Leonard and a fan of the movies that have been made about his material. It’s a world that really interests me, a tonality that I like to play in and a complexity that is a rarity in television. And this world in particular happens to be rural and bucolic and this character to me was extremely smart. It’s not often that you get to play a rural person that is that intelligent, self-taught, and that was very important to me to make him the smartest man in the room. And so approaching it from that angle it was just a really rare opportunity.

2. When you played him in the beginning of season 2 did you know if he really was serious about not wanting to be criminal again?

I think absolutely. At the end of season one 18 of his men were executed by his father and I think he was like in a boat in a sort of drift on the ocean without an anchor. He just wanted to get as deep as possible emotionally and physically, and so short of ending his life he decided to go work in a bottom of a mine. And I think it was just to get a kind of perpective on his life and to really turn over a new leave. Boyd is not a person who lives in the middle, he lives in extremes and I think his journey in season 2 is about finding bounds in his life for the first time.

Head on over to myFanbase for the full interview with Walton. Continue reading..