From playing a mysteriously complicated man in The White Lotus to an unhinged vice principal — or even a cowboy ghoul, Walton Goggins can do it all.
“Comedies or dramas or movies or TV shows or big parts or small parts — it’s the sum total of all of them that led to this moment. I’m grateful to be known for all of it,” Goggins told GQ about his unstoppable acting career before adding with a chuckle, “And none of it, I mean, really.”
The chameleonic Goggins will add yet another acting credit to his resume when he makes his hosting debut on Saturday Night Live on May 10, with Arcade Fire as Musical Guest.
RELATED: Watch Walton Goggins’ SNL Sketches & Monologue from May 10, 2025
So where have you seen the character actor before? Goggins has the range, and he’s recently gained fans playing three wildly different characters on hit series: The Righteous Gemstones, White Lotus, and Fallout.
Read on to look back at Goggins’ many TV and movie roles, and find out how he approaches each memorable character.
Walton Goggins’ acting career began in the late ‘80s
Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1971 and raised in Georgia, Goggins got his start in acting when he was a teen when he landed a role on NBC, in the procedural crime drama In the Heat of the Night. A year later, he starred as Lyle in the 1990 television film, Murder in Mississippi.
In an interview with Vulture, Goggins said that while he didn’t act in school plays during his childhood, he grew up watching one of his aunts on stage.
“I stayed with her while she was doing dinner theater, and I’d see these beautiful women changing backstage, the whole life, the bohemian lifestyle, the reaction from the audience and thought, ‘I want to do that. It’s very powerful,’” he said, adding that he had his mom to drive him to a casting director’s office in Atlanta when he was 14 — without any sort of an appointment.
“I told [the casting director], ‘I don’t know how to do this, but I know that I’ve had an interesting life, and I know that I feel things deeply. With some guidance and help, I can do this,’” he recalled. “And she said okay.”
Goggins’ acting career has been nonstop, particularly when it comes to his most recent television roles.
For instance, you know him as Rick Hatchett in The White Lotus Season 3, Cooper Howard aka The Ghoul in Fallout, Baby Billy Freeman in The Righteous Gemstones, and Lee Russell in Vice Principals. He’s also earned fans for playing Boyd Crowder on the neo-Western crime drama Justified with Timothy Olyphant, and for portraying Venus Van Dam on Sons of Anarchy.
Goggins is also known for his roles in The Shield, Invincible, Deep State, George and Tammy, I’m a Virgo, Community, and more.
With more than 40 movie credits to his name, Goggins has had roles in several blockbuster films. He starred as Sheriff Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight, Billy Crash in Django Unchained, Stans in Predators, and Sonny Burch in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
He also had notable roles in Lincoln, Maze: Runner: The Death Cure, Tomb Raider, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Dreamin’ Wild, among many others.
Goggins’ work in film also won an Oscar. In 2002, The Accountant, starring him and Ray McKinnon, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. “The short film and movies we’ve made I’m as proud of as anything I’ve ever done,” Goggins told Vulture of working with McKinnon.
RELATED: Sam Nivola on the Blender and Which White Lotus Season 3 Finale Fan Theory Was Right
Walton Goggins approaches comedy and drama roles “the same” way
While there’s no doubt that Goggins has a wide range as an actor, he told GQ he sees them all “the same” for a thoughtful reason.
“I don’t believe in playing dramas or comedies, I see them the same,” he said in a 2024 interview. “I think there’s a different tonality to all of it, right? But any person I’ve been given the opportunity to play has to be rooted in life, they have to exist in the world — in my mind. I’m not playing an idea of someone. That would be antithetical to my belief system.”
Walton Goggins sees more “storytelling” in his future
Though he’s been a staple in the entertainment industry for decades, Goggins is certainly having a moment after multiple back-to-back roles that keep fans tuning in and talking. And down the line, when his son Augustus with wife Nadia Conners, is all grown up, he still sees himself still telling stories — on a very chill schedule.
In 2025, Goggins sat down with his friend Danny McBride, who he’s co-starred with on The Righteous Gemstones and Vice Principals, for Interview Magazine. McBride asked Goggins, “What have you not done that you really hope you get a chance to do before this is all said and done?”
RELATED: Kevin Hart Is the “New Pope” In SNL’s Surreal Sketch
“I think there’s another chapter to my life and it involves storytelling on some level, but in a diminished capacity,” he said. “I want to streamline my life after my son goes to college, and set up someplace for a few months out of the year — in Europe, or rent a cheap apartment on Hydra or insert little island here — and I want to spend even more quality time with my friends, my son, my wife, and with myself. I want to drink coffee in the morning, go for a big swim, start drinking at 3 in the afternoon, be done by 8, read a book and go to bed. Maybe learn another language. I don’t know.”
Watch Walton Goggins host the May 10 episode of Saturday Night Live on NBC and Peacock, streaming next-day on Peacock
