I’ve added 2 high quality scans of Walton on the cover of Back Stage Magazine from their February 24 – March 2 issue which is out now. It features a great interview with Walton, where we learn a little more behind the making of Walton Goggins; Actor.

Gallery Link:
- Magazines / Publications > Back Stage Magazine (Feb-24-Mar-02 2011)

On Justified, when two hillbilly thugs walk into a room with an ominous-looking bag, you know they’re not toting the makings of a picnic. Anything might be inside: explosives, guns, a bear trap. For Timothy Olyphant, who stars on FX’s crime drama as the low-key but deadly deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and is now a producer, the secret to the show’s rich yet unhurried storytelling is how it triggers the imagination.

“I keep thinking about all the things that could be in the bag,” says Olyphant to staff writer Dave Andron as they sit on location in South Pasadena, California, outside of a police museum that’s doubling today as a jailhouse in rural eastern Kentucky. “Now the thing that tickles me most is live animals,” says Olyphant, who is dressed in full Raylan gear: nicely cut suit, collared shirt, tie, cowboy boots and, of course, his Stetson. “How about a…badger?” Olyphant collapses in a fit of giggles. “Badgers!” he drawls, riffing on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “We don’t need no stinking badgers!”

Season 2 packs more unexpected twists than a sackful of such critters. Episode 1 will be memorable to every Justified fan for the indelible introduction of Raylan’s newest adversary, Mags Bennett, played by Margo Martindale. She’s the mother of three dimwit sons, including one played by Lost’s Jeremy Davies, and was inspired by both a real-life Kentucky crime matriarch and one of three brand-new Raylan-centric short stories penned by exec producer and master mystery writer Elmore Leonard. Raylan’s surprising affection for Mags stems from their shared past. Says Olyphant, “[Raylan]‘s a guy who’s able to put aside certain things and say, ‘These are the people I grew up with. She knew me when I was wearing Pampers, she knew my granddaddy.’”

During a recent exclusive interview with Collider, actor Walton Goggins talked about the appeal of playing the intriguing and often morally ambiguous Boyd Crowder, how his character is starting to find some balance from his past behavior, and how much he enjoys learning about Boyd at the same time the character is learning about himself. He also talked about his roles in the upcoming feature films Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau and due out in theaters on July 29th, and Straw Dogs, also starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, and Alexander Skarsgard. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Question: How did this role come about for you? Was there any hesitation in doing another television series, so close to the end of The Shield?
WALTON GOGGINS: There was a lot of hesitation, yeah. My first reaction was, “No,” first and foremost because it was so close to The Shield, and secondly because, after what the critics had done for me and the things that were said about that show, I did not want to sully that with asking people to accept me in another role, and certainly a role that could have been as controversial as Boyd [Crowder]. You don’t say those things about Jews without generating some ire. And so, therefore, I just said, “No, I’m not going to be seen in that way. These people have been too good to me.” But, we talked about it and talked about it and talked about it, and I thought, “You know, if we can do it right and you guys will let me do this role the way that I want to do it, then we may have something special and the critics may actually dig it. Just seeing something so radically different than Shane, so soon, might be a blessing and not a curse.”

There’s a rich TV drama tradition of characters who are supposed to die in pilot episodes who prove so popular that they’re resurrected between the time the pilot is shot and when it airs. On “Hill Street Blues,” beat cops Hill & Renko were supposed to die a stunning death in a shooting, but the characters proved so likable that they were just badly wounded. In the “ER” pilot, Carol Hathaway’s suicide attempt was supposed to succeed, but the producers realized Julianna Margulies added a valuable ingredient and let the ER docs save her.

And on FX’s “Justified,” Raylan Givens was supposed to kill his old friend Boyd Crowder, just as he did in “Fire in the Hole,” the Elmore Leonard short story on which it was based. But producer Graham Yost saw that “The Shield” alum Walton Goggins was so magnetic as Boyd that it would be a waste to kill him – and Leonard, often irked when adaptations deviate too much from his work, approved.

As Boyd, a demolitions expert, onetime white supremacist and religious leader, and a born liar – even he’s not sure sometimes whether he believes the ridiculous things he says – Goggins is every bit the charismatic equal of Timothy Olyphant as Raylan, and he’s again memorable as the series returns for its new season Wednesday night at 10.

Goggins is also a very smart, articulate guy (he produced the Oscar-winning short film “The Accountant” back in 2001), so I was eager to talk to him at press tour a few weeks ago. We spoke about the evolution of Boyd, his contributions to that, and also quite a bit about what happened to his character at the end of “The Shield,” so read at your own peril if you haven’t seen that finale but intend to one day.

(Also note that I had to cut out a number of exchanges about things Boyd does in the first three episodes of the new season, so there may be a few abrupt transitions in the transcript.)

Am I going crazy, or has Boyd’s accent evolved over time?
It has evolved over time because he’s evolved over time. In the pilot, I wanted this guy to love words. I wanted him to love words and I wanted him to wrap his mouth around words. And there was one scene early on that I just started playing with and kind of tweaking. And Graham let me have carte blanche, gave me autonomy with this guy. And in the pilot I was able to introduce this guy in the way he sees the words by saying, in the middle of his speech, “Well you, know we were talking about this target and it was an innocuous target, you know what that means? That means harmless.” And Boyd was a showman. He was a bigger than life kind of showman in that pilot episode. And then when they came back and they said, “Would you stay?” I said, “If we can do something else, because a guy has a near-death experience, then he’s going to find God, you go to God and you’re going to experience a high level of humility.” And so with that we were able to bring him back and make him very quiet and very humble. Those next 4 episodes for him (when Goggins was busy filming “Predators”), I was just able to pop in for a scene here and there, but he was very quiet. And then once he found his next stage, he was really able to start to get big again and more precise because the message was more precise and the Bible was more precise. He wasn’t quoting himself; he was quoting the Bible. And this season… he’s just kind of in a spiritual turmoil. And he doesn’t really understand any of it. He’s just trying to be known. He’s looking for nothing and that’s dangerous. So his voice would reflect that.

When “Justified” premiered on FX, a lot of viewers were just excited to see Walton Goggins back on TV after “The Shield.” “Justified” quickly earned its own audience and Goggins made guest appearances as the show found its legs. “Justified” returns for season two on Feb. 9 and Boyd Crowder is back full time. I caught up with Goggins at the Fox party for the Television Critics Association in January for the scoop.

Q: Are you back as a featured character this year or the same number of appearances as last year?

WG: No, no, I’m back. It’s my show now with Tim. Yeah, it’s both of us. I’m signed on for good. It’s good.

Q: So how does that change the role and the commitment for you?

WG: Well, the commitment will be I can’t do another movie simultaneously. They kind of bought me, I’m there. I think it’s going to allow for the relationship between Raylan and Boyd to really take off and become more nuanced and complicated.

Q: Movies aside though, is that what you wanted all along?

WG: It is what I wanted, yeah. I think it’s what these two characters deserve.

Q: Are they sort of reflections of each other in a way?

WG: I think so, yeah. I don’t think Raylan can really exist without Boyd and Boyd can’t really exist without Raylan. They wear a similar hat, even though they look different on the surface.

His character, Boyd Crowder, began the series, which returns for its second season on Feb. 9, as a seemingly psychotic white supremacist. But as the show progressed, an apparent spiritual awakening led the character to break with his father, a crime boss, and, in the season finale, save his on-again, off-again adversary, played by Mr. Olyphant, in a climactic shootout.

Mr. Goggins grounded the pulpy twists with an understated portrayal that mixed the series’ florid dialogue with an unhinged ambiguity. Boyd’s motives were never entirely clear, and a character originally presented as a “stereotypical over-the-top redneck racist,” as Mr. Goggins put it, was revealed to be an intelligent manipulator and a cagey counterpoint to the United States marshal Raylan Givens, the protagonist, played by Mr. Olyphant.

The evolution happened on the fly. The original script killed off Boyd in the pilot, and when the producers decided to keep him around, Mr. Goggins helped them take the character beyond a stereotype. “I wasn’t interested in playing that person in the pilot,” he said. “I’m from the South — I’m not going to sell out my own culture for the sake of a television show.”

Here is a great interview with Walton about his character ‘Stans’ from Predators.

The 38-year-old, who grew up in Lithia Springs, not only boasts starring roles in the FX hit series “Justified” and the upcoming summer blockbuster “Predators,” but Goggins also got engaged to his girlfriend of five years, screenwriter Nadia Conners (“The 11th Hour”) while on vacation in Mexico last month.

Goggins portrays a serial killer on the other side of the hunt in “Predators”, which opens in theaters Friday.

Earlier this summer, Goggins and I sat down at the Laurel Canyon Country Store, nestled in a quiet hamlet between the Hollywood Hills and San Fernando Valley. Both patrons and the owner alike dropped by our table to say hello; all echoed the same sentiment: Walton is a great guy.

Q: You’ve found a favorite spot in Los Angeles where everyone seems to know you.

A: I think that people try to find a sense of community wherever they go. Coming from the South, I grew up where you could see your neighbors, but they were a fair distance away. A field separated me from my neighbors Kermit and Fanny. So, I grew up with space. Moving to a city with 12 million people it’s hard to find space. Laurel Canyon provides the perfect hybrid for me in this city as it is urban, but it feels very bucolic. It gives me a feeling of home.

Q: Everybody here seems to know you. Do you ever get tired of that?

A: No, everyone has different levels of celebrity and my celebrity is very familiar and familial. Mostly people that come up to me feel like they have the right to do so and it’s usually resulted in a really nice conversation. So, for me, it’s the perfect level of celebrity. People aren’t shy to tell you how they feel about your work, and when you’re working on screen, you’re often working in a vacuum, so it’s nice to have the feedback from people that follow your work.