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This is Fresh Air.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and today my guest is Walton Goggins.
He has been on a run like no other.
The White Lotus, The Righteous Gemstones, Fallout, and his newest film, The Uninvited.
It's the latest surge in a 30-year career built on playing some of the most magnetic and morally complex characters in film and television.
From the sharp-witted outlaw Boyd Crowder in Justified, to the swaggering, scheming baby Billy Freeman in The Righteous Gemstones, to a series of layered portrayals of Southern men in films, including Quentin Tarantino's Django, Unchained and The Hateful Eight.
Goggins has talked about how he tries to bring authenticity and nuance to his roles portraying Southern men, resisting the pressure to turn them into caricatures.
Lately, Goggins has been reflecting on the arc of his career and how his childhood has informed his approach to his craft.
And when we sat down for our interview he said let's get into the thick of it, the real of it life in between the roles.
So that's exactly what we did.
We started talking about hosting Saturday Night Live, which he did a few weeks ago.
It was the day before Mother's Day, and he describes it as a high point in his career, in part because he shared the moment with his mother.
I was raised in Atlanta, Georgia by my mother with the help of her three sisters and my grandmother.
And my mama is the most important person in my life.
Growing up.
Whenever my mama she couldn't afford a babysitter, she would take me with her to honky tonks.
My mother taught me how to clog, taught me how to two-stuck.
And luckily enough for me, my mama is here tonight.
We've come a really long way, haven't we, Mom?
Absolutely.
And since it's Mother's Day tomorrow, Mama, would you dance with me?
Yes.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You know what?
Yeah, hold on.
Let's kick this up a notch.
Fellas, if you don't mind.
Walden Goggins, welcome to Fresh Air.
So, so happy to be here.
Thank you for the invitation.
Walden, that was such a beautiful moment.
And she came up on stage, and then you all started dancing.
But you know, the thing that really got me about that is...
When you're raised by a single mom.
There is nobody like you and your mother knowing what it took for you to be up on that stage.
It's very true.
And my mom's life story is so interesting and the journey that it took her, the life that she led up until having a child, and then the life that subsequently we had together, to be kind of on that stage, in that moment, after not seeing my mom for a year.
Really?
Why?
Because you were busy?
I'd just been on the road for a year and a half and It just so happened that she came to our home and stepped in when I was out of town to help my wife.
And she's obviously really close to her grandson, our son.
But I just missed her.
And I kept missing her by like a day or something.
So I saw her in her dressing room at 30 Rock for the first time.
I mean, that was the reunion I had.
And five minutes later, We're doing the first run through of the monologue and the dancing.
And all of the emotions, all the feels were happening like in real time in front of other people.
And it was really remarkable.
And, you know, and obviously the tears kind of in her eyes.
My mom has no stage fright.
Well, obviously, because she jumped right into it.
Right in.
Give me a crowd.
If I'm dancing for one person or I'm dancing for a million, it doesn't matter to my mom.
And she's had such an amazing spiritual journey that she knows exactly who she is.
And that's rubbed off on me.
And you've talked about how, growing up, it was you and her and you all had each other and she would take you, when she didn't have a babysitter, to the honky-tonks.
I mean, I have a single mother and she had some amazing boyfriends that were extremely influential in my life.
But she also had...
Three sisters, my aunts and my grandmother.
And then I had my grandfather, my father's father and my grandmother kind of on that side, too.
But it was I wasn't raised, honestly, Tanya, by anybody.
And if my mom was sitting here, she would say the same thing.
I've always kind of had the moniker that Walton raised himself.
Yeah.
And what I mean by that is it wasn't neglect.
It was the opposite.
There were always people around.
It was like a village.
I was raised by a village of people.
This makes sense because you said something a while ago that you never slept more than seven days in the same bed until you were around 15 years old.
Ever.
And so now this is kind of making sense.
Is that because you were in a village?
You were just going from house to house?
Why was that?
Yeah, I mean, you know, my mother wasn't, you know, young, young when she had me.
I mean, she had me, I think she was 23 or something like that.
But, you know, my parents got divorced when I was three.
And, you know, we lived in Decatur, Georgia, you know, downtown, a little duplex.
And then eventually we, you know, got this little house out in Lithia Springs, Georgia.
And, you know, it was everything for my mom to buy a house.
And but with that, my mom just had a lot of great friends.
Screens weren't a big part of your life, meaning like you weren't someone who was really into movies or shows growing up, but you always sit on the porch.
Was this at your mom's house on the front porch and just talk to people?
Yeah, you know, yeah.
No, we didn't go to see a lot of movies.
I mean, we went to some seminal movies, but it wasn't certainly a big part of our life.
I mean we had a television.
You know I mean Sanford and Son and you know The Jeffersons and TBS.
Those are the ones you were watching?
And The Braves, you know.
Yeah, absolutely.
I still watch them, you know, but but yeah, so we didn't didn't have a lot of screens kind of growing up.
That really wasn't a big a big part of our life.
My my, my aunt Joan, and her husband, my uncle Mark.
They were both actors in the theater and in a regional kind of equity equity theater space, usually like all over kind of the south, but they traveled a bit up north.
And I grew up watching them on stage.
But this entire group of people that I'm talking to you, about all of them.
Like you could just hand the microphone to any one of these people and they could just command the room for hours.
And no one interrupted their story because they just wanted to hear it.
And it was just a lot of laughter and And a lot of weed, you know.
And they were all deeply empathic people.
And they wore their emotions on their sleeve.
And they always cared about other people.
It seems like it's something that is of great value to you.
One of the details that I always find funny.
I've heard you say the story a couple of times that you were runner-up for the friendliest person in the mock election in high school.
And the thing about that that really got me was that you hold on to that detail that you were runner-up.
But also that that is a quality of yours that you feel is important to you.
I do feel that being kind is important.
I mean, it's not like, excuse my language, it's not like I can't be an asshole.
I can, for sure.
But it's something that you value.
It is something that I value, yeah, deeply.
And this is the women in my family.
This is my mother.
We never had a washer and dryer when I was young.
And so we'd go to the laundromat like a lot of people do.
And there was a video game there, arcade game, centipede or whatever.
And she would give me the change to play it.
But spending those years in a laundromat.
Just being around people.
My mother's dream in life was to be able to afford, to be able to take a thousand dollars out of the bank and and and go around to all these other people folding their laundry.
And when they weren't looking, slip in a twenty dollar bill.
So that when they got home, it's like, wow, oh my God, in their sweatpants.
That was a dream she would share with you.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like, what would you do with a million dollars?
This is what I would do with a thousand dollars.
And that led me to have this experience in Cambodia.
What did you do?
Okay, ready for this?
I was traveling in Southeast Asia.
I was in Cambodia and then I was in Northern Vietnam.
I came back to Cambodia and I wanted to go work for an organization because I met this really cool backpacker.
And she said, I just got back and this organization was cool.
I called them and I said, I'd really like to come.
I'd like to give some money or I'd like to do something like a lot of people do.
The guy, you know, never got back to me.
But so then I had this driver.
His name was Tang.
And he had this tuk-tuk, right, that he drove me around.
I knew enough about the country to know that there are families that still comb the trash pile looking for jewelry and things of value that they can make money off of.
Correct.
So I stopped at the ATM.
I got out $2,000.
And small bills.
And we spent, I want to say, 12 hours just walking that trash pile on top of it, and then the tents and everything that are off to the side.
And I just gave it out $20 at a time, just like my mama.
And it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.
You know, to grow up poor, you always have dreams that, like one day I'll be able to do this, or what would you do with this?
Or what would you give up in life to have a million dollars?
You know, sometimes it's always those fantasies and jokes.
You started working at 12 years old?
Yeah.
Yeah, at 12.
Yeah.
And you have had some really interesting jobs before you became an actor.
You worked at construction site.
Yeah, mixing cement.
Mixing cement.
Yeah, for rock masons, yeah.
Skating rink.
Skating rink.
I think it's been downhill from there.
Yeah, as a DJ in a skating rink.
Yep, yep.
Going into my summer before my ninth grade year.
I sold bait.
I worked with a roofing crew and going to school too well, it was summer, right and um.
But then we had a program once we got into high school where you know you could start working i think in the 11th grade or something like that for however many hours that you could work for a week.
It was very different back then and yeah, i got in that program and uh, and i just kept working and i worked, uh at And retail, you know, at the mall, like a lot of people do.
But with my best friend, this guy Edwin, and a crew of guys that I grew up with, we sold newspapers the Atlanta Journal of the Constitution door to door.
And we would only work like three hours a day.
But we had that gift to gab, you know, and, you know, just to make people have a good time.
And we sold so many, so many subscriptions to Atlanta Journal of the Constitution.
It was so much fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you've talked though about like you wanted to have money in your pocket, but you also kind of felt a little bit of insecurity, but maybe even shame about being poor.
Yeah.
Oh, God, absolutely.
And I don't carry it with me so much anymore.
But I think that's one of the most profound kind of insecurities that I had with me for a long time.
Two things, really.
But one, being this outsider, not having a lot as a kid, and There was one moment where I was dating this girl and I just liked her so much.
I had the biggest crush on this person.
And I remember her mom was coming to pick me up, and I think I lied to my mom.
She knew where I was going to go, and I said, Mom, I think she's going to be here pretty soon.
I didn't give her my address.
I gave her my neighbor's address.
And I said, Okay, Mom, I think you're coming.
I love you.
Bye-bye.
And I ran out and hid in the ditch.
And I saw these lights kind of coming and I, and I knew it was them.
And so I just jumped out and like as if I was walking down the driveway and they pulled in, and then the porch light kind of came on behind me.
And I just jumped in the car.
It's like, okay, let's go.
Let's go.
Well, can't we meet your, you know, your mom?
No, no, no.
She's let's just get out of here.
And and the other thing was not having a um, not finishing college and not having those four years of deep, soulful learning um.
You spent a year in college and I just wondered about this because you carried like an insecurity about that, that you didn't have maybe that formative education with all the classics and things like that.
Yeah.
Just being in conversations, when I got out to Los Angeles there was one ride in particular, kind of coming back from San Diego to LA.
I was with this group of people that – that all went to these fancy schools.
And they were talking about literature and referencing all of these different authors and the characters in these books.
And I just had no idea what they were talking about.
Nothing.
And I just kept making these mental notes.
Before cell phone, I couldn't put a note down.
It was like, okay, yeah.
You're like Ernest Hemingway.
Somerset Maugham.
All of these different things.
John Steinbeck.
And then I just kind of set out to do that, you know, on my own.
But I would have given anything to have had that time.
I wouldn't have traded my life, because I wouldn't want anything to be altered in my life, because I'm so grateful for the life that I have, not just in this moment.
I've always been grateful for my life.
But if I could go back and not alter my life, I would take four years meeting kids in class and talking politics in a second.
Why did you leave after a year to go from college?
Because I got this offer from American Express to go into debt.
Wait, wait, wait.
You got to tell this.
So you got in the mail.
I showed up to college like everybody else, and I began getting mail.
And one of the first pack of advertising was this offer from American Express.
That said, if you get this card, you will get two flight vouchers for 99 east of the Mississippi or 199 west of the Mississippi.
And I looked at them and I thought all I've got to do is get this card and I can go to Los Angeles for 199.
Because the tickets were so expensive back then.
And at that time, you had already had the acting bug, right?
And I already started working.
Yeah.
I'd done like In the Heat of the Night, and then this big movie of the week called Murder Mississippi, about the three slain civil rights workers.
Had it already crystallized in your mind then by that time that acting was the career you wanted to go into.
Yeah.
Certainly that was going to be a part of my experience was trying it, endeavoring to do it, endeavoring to learn what it is that you're asking yourself to do.
Absolutely, I would be lying if I said otherwise, but It was really also to have an experience.
I just wanted to get out.
I just wanted to see the world.
I wanted a passport that was filled with stamps from all over the world.
And that's what I wanted.
And, coming to Los Angeles, being able to at least try to become a storyteller was going to be a part of my journey.
And then, if that didn't work out, I don't know what I would have done, but it would have.
I would have had a passport filled with stamps from other countries.
That I do know.
How much money did you come to L.A. with in your pocket?
300 bucks.
There's an element when you grow up in poverty that a little bit of it always stays with you.
Always.
What are the ways that you might know that others may not even perceive?
I still save my per diem.
Like, you know, I understand the value of a dollar.
And the per diem is what the studio gives you or what they give you when you're on a movie.
A living allowance.
Yeah, a living allowance.
And I will spend $1,000 on a meal, but only after I've eaten for free for 10 days.
You know what I mean?
Just the insecurity of even though I never lost a house my mom never lost her house or anything like that but the insecurity of not being able to provide for my family.
I want to talk about some of your early roles, because one of your first roles happened in 1997 with Robert Duvall on The Apostle.
And this film, to remind people, Duvall plays Sonny.
He is a Pentecostal preacher and he's charismatic but deeply flawed.
And you played this young man Sam, who becomes a born-again Christian after you meet Duvall's character.
I read that after you all finished filming, Duvall took you to lunch, and he gave you some advice.
Well, he gave me some advice and he gave me a compliment that I certainly wasn't expecting.
We were at lunch and he said, I want to tell you something.
Hey, hey.
He said, you know, not many people can do what you just did.
Not many people are willing to do what you just did.
And because you're not thinking about it and you're just coming from your heart.
There is no filter on you.
And you're turning yourself over to an imaginary set of circumstances.
But he said, don't lose that.
He said, I don't even think you're fearless.
I don't even think fear comes into it.
I think maybe you're fearful, but I don't think it's a decision for you to be fearless.
I don't think you came to this job thinking I'm going to show people, I'm going to just let it all hang out.
It's just in your body.
And don't ever, ever, ever lose that.
Be that open always.
What he was saying was you're not jaded.
I mean, it's not like you don't have obstacles that you need to overcome and deep insecurities.
But what you do have is an open heart.
And don't lose that, man.
You know what I mean?
Always come from that, even if you get it wrong.
But don't lose that love and passion for this work or that you appear to have in life.
Our guest today is actor Walton Goggins.
We'll be right back after a short break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.
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One of the things about you as an actor that I see over and over again is that you know you're memorable.
And every single thing that you're in, people remember you.
And it's also true that you haven't gotten quite a bit of roles because you're so memorable.
Because can they have this guy who's like everyone can see and know, be like the supporting actor?
Was that ever frustrating for you at any point in your career?
Well, I just never – I've been around for such a long time.
Based on my looks or my personality.
I'm not like a conventional leading man, or I haven't been my whole life.
And the people that knew what to do with me knew what to do with me early on.
But I just didn't have those opportunities in film.
You know a couple of like kind of leading roles in movies that no one saw, and I'm still so proud of them.
And I just...
I made the most out of every single opportunity that I was given.
And because the only thing that you can control in this business is the work that you put into it right.
Expecting nothing in return.
And I have had that.
I just didn't have those opportunities.
And it was only once television kind of opened up for me that I began to carve out a space for me with these opportunities.
That went in many different ways.
But for the most part, if you get the opportunity to go to work, you go to work.
Whenever you've been away from it a little long because your ego got involved and you think, oh well, that's beneath me.
Is it?
Really?
Go to work.
Have you had those moments?
Oh, man.
You know, after The Shield, you know, I mean it was prestige television at the dawning of this last iteration of that.
This was like your really big regular series.
Yeah, yeah.
2001?
Yeah, it would have been... We did the pilot before 9-11.
And then they picked it up and we went to work, whatever, six or seven months later.
But after that experience, you know, seven years...
Having that experience.
After that, you know I couldn't get a job for anything.
You know, nothing kind of came my way.
And I guess because, just like when people saw The Apostle, we had a premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and i remember my manager's friend leaning in and whispering my ear this is going to be a big movie for you, even though you, you know you have a smaller part.
You take it emotionally, get ready.
Nothing happened because people thought i was just from new orleans, from louisiana, and i just got this local hire or whatever, and people thought about me like for a really long time, Did you get excited about that?
Because I'm just thinking you've been in so many.
You know like okay, you're in The Apostle, then The Shield, then you go into these prestige movies.
I didn't think too much about it, to be quite honest with you.
Tanya, I just thought, just go back to work.
And so after The Shield, nothing happened.
And then a friend of mine was doing this movie.
It offered me a really, really small part.
And my ego was in the way.
It was like, man, I just want more.
And I was walking with my wife.
She looked at me and said, you need to go to work.
And I said, yeah, that's exactly what I need to do.
I'm going to call him right now.
And I did.
I took it.
And work begets work.
And so for me, that's happened two or three times in my – after The Hateful Eight.
I could – phone didn't ring, you know, for a long time.
And it's like, man, this is Quentin.
That's a pretty good role.
I mean, that's pretty good people in this movie.
I mean, like, right.
Everybody's thinking this is the moment.
Okay, I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Yeah.
A second one.
Right.
With Sam and with Kurt and Jen and Tim, like –
And I couldn't get a job.
And then I got a phone call to do something.
And I just thought, yeah, you know what?
I can do that.
And it was just.
It's almost like God just said okay well, you're just going to have to keep moving.
You know what I mean?
You're going to have to keep swimming upstream and all of these different ways and go off on this little tributary or this one here, because those are the opportunities that you're getting.
So just say yes.
It's interesting you mentioned your wife.
You know you're going for a walk and she can see in you.
You got to go to work.
She can feel that restlessness in you.
You all have done a project together, The Uninvited.
And this is your wife's very first movie.
I want to tell people a little bit about The Uninvited.
So the story centers on a single evening in the Hollywood Hills.
Rose is the main character.
She's a former stage actress turned reluctant housewife.
And you play her husband, Sammy.
He's a Hollywood talent agent.
He's like a you know, bombastic kind of like guy and the two of you throw this small but high stakes party at this lavish home to impress Sammy's biggest client.
It's a hot shot, director.
Um, One of the things your wife does in the writing is she illuminates really like this idea of how wealth and status really can't shut out the realities of life.
That, like all of the things, still happen to this family, despite the fact that they're wealthy and they're in this big Hollywood home.
And this woman who comes that's older and is confused, she represents so many things.
It all just kind of comes crashing in.
I think one of the most important takeaways for the movie for me is that the uninvited is actually an invitation to live your life more meaningfully.
And that's what all of these characters do.
They have money, but as they say in the movie, Most of this is borrowed anyway.
They're just renting.
They bought a house that they'll never be able to pay for.
It's just a facade.
They're on a treadmill like everyone else.
And then this woman shows up at their house and is the great disruptor to everything.
Shake all of these people out of walking through life numbly without kind of experiencing everything that's kind of going on around you.
And she's a great catalyst for change for all these people.
And it happened to us.
It's based on, yeah, like a real story almost.
We were at a party that we were throwing at our house and a woman showed up.
In her 80s and rang the buzzer and said, I need to get in my house, please.
And yeah, so it's predicated on that.
And it's a great story.
People have really responded to it.
I'm really proud of my wife.
Because it's an independent film, right?
You've got Pedro Pascal.
There's some big names in this movie.
Rufus Sewell, Lois Smith, Elizabeth Reaser.
Yeah, some really, really great people.
You know these are life experiences, but I can't help but think about how they're infused in what you do, because you're wanting to have these human connections with people and understand people.
And one of the things you're just known for.
You're taking on comedic acting.
You're taking on serious roles.
You're inhabiting people that are characters.
Are they showing up in the work that you do?
Because I feel like it is.
I think so.
Thank you very much for saying that, first and foremost.
But I do.
The art of storytelling, the job of storytelling, the privilege of storytelling.
For me it is a religion.
And the way that I was raised, the people that raised me, and their empathy for the world around them and for their fellow men and women is how I approach every job that I do.
I, just I love getting close to these people, that I get to play, that I've had the opportunity to play, and understanding the world from their point of view.
But that's always been with me since I was a kid.
Because that's how I was raised.
It makes you emotional.
It is.
Like every time you get to this point, you start to get emotional.
I'm just wanting to know, what is it?
Okay, well, I think about the shield, you know, and I think about the ending of that.
And I think about the tragedy of this person, who who was under the influence of this guy, Vic Mackey, so brilliantly played by Chiklis?
And I think about the way that his life ended.
And I think about him being on the run.
And I think about the conversation that he had once he found love in his life and he was his own man, without much time left to live.
Because he found peace and something to live for.
Mm-hmm.
And I go right back there every single time I talk about it.
I look at Boyd Crowder's journey, and it is not so different from my own.
It is a dude who is just trying to get out of poverty and reinvent himself, not so that other people can see him in a certain way, so that he can see himself in a different way.
And his whole journey is something that is so profoundly intimate to me.
Just like the Rick and the White Lotus, every single thing, the role in the Hateful Eight.
Chris Mannix is dying on the bed thinking about.
What does it take to change the heart and mind of one white dude?
You know, what does that mean, really?
And all of these people, they mean something to me.
And what's so exciting about my life is that I'm not done.
There are more people for me to meet.
Whether I get it right or whether I don't get it right is irrelevant to me.
I will always strive to understand these people with the level of empathy and curiosity that was instilled in me from my childhood and that I moved through life with.
You mentioned Boyd Crowder, and that's from the show Justified.
It debuted in 2010.
It ran for six seasons.
Your character Boyd, he's this charismatic outlaw.
And you star alongside Timothy Oliphant, who plays U.S.
Marshal Raylan Givens.
And both of you are shaped by the same world, but of course you have different outcomes.
Well, the scene that I want to play is from the end of the series.
And I want to play it because it kind of goes back to something you're talking about, when you keep going back to home like the foundation of who you are.
So at the end of the series, when Boyd is in prison and Raylan comes to deliver some news to him face-to-face, you all say this thing and your character speaks first.
Let's listen.
Can I ask you one question before you go?
As long as you understand if it annoys me, I'm just going to hang up.
Scout's honor.
Travel penitentiary is a long way from Miami, Raylan.
Now you could have Called the warden.
Could have sent word through my lawyer.
Asked him why I came.
Thought it was news that should be delivered in person.
That's the only reason.
After all these long years we had in Gibbons, that's the only reason.
And I suppose, if I allow myself to be sentimental despite all that has occurred, there is one thing I wonder back to you.
We dug coal together.
That's right.
That's my guest today, Walton Goggins from the FX series Justified.
It's the statement that echoes through the show that we dug coal together.
The people.
We move on, we go in different directions, but there's that tie that always holds us together.
Always.
Some of the things you said about yourself when you were young are all the things you shared, but there's also.
Was there a moment in time when there could have been another path for you?
When you got in trouble, when you got into some things or people that you've left behind, that you dug coal together with, but have taken another path.
I mean, you know, we dug coal is a metaphor for so many things in our lives, right?
Yeah.
But yeah, there were people that I grew up with that died or friends that just went a different way.
I don't think that that was ever, ever going to happen for me.
I don't think I had a choice.
If you're just joining us, I'm talking to actor Walton Goggins.
We'll continue our conversation after a short break.
This is Fresh Air.
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I want to talk a little bit about Baby Billy from The Righteous Gemstones.
I just talked to Danny McBride, the creator.
I know you all have now become dear friends.
I know Baby Billy is like a composite of a lot of different people.
You and Danny McBride went into a room together and you kind of created this person together.
I need to know more about where you got that from and like where the accent, all of it.
It's like somebody I know.
It's like my uncle in Mississippi, you know, like, get over here.
Where did you get that from?
Well, you know, I really and I genuinely mean this.
I've said this so many times, but I don't believe in playing a character.
I don't believe in making choices.
I don't sit in a room and go, oh, is it is Baby Bella right here?
What is he?
Oh, he's a baby Billy here.
Like, where is he?
How does he walk?
I don't really think about those things.
I don't stand in front of a mirror and go, well, wouldn't it be interesting?
Like from a cerebral kind of analytical point of view, you just put on the costume and put on the clothes and then you're just that person.
I just spent so much time in my imagination imagining these people are real, but they come from probably the places along the way.
Absolutely.
So, okay, my father, there's an... A bit of the belly of your dad.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, just kind of like a big flamboyant personality that can just fill up a room.
And my father's an amazing guy and a really entertaining guy.
He was a tough guy for a long time when I was growing up, but He's a very very, very interesting person.
You know, I'm Walton Sanders Goggins Jr.
And my half brother is Walton Sanders Goggins III.
You know, my father is probably by definition, you know, a clinical narcissist, but he's also, he's a good man.
My father has a really good heart.
And like all of us, he just did the best he could with his trauma.
And I do have a lot of forgiveness in my heart and not even forgiveness, just understanding at this point.
The father-son relationship was a prominent through line in The White Lotus.
Your character Rick, went to Thailand in search of the person who he thought was responsible for his father's death.
It's really interesting when you talk about this place that you've come to with your own father and that character arc.
But what was it like to be a part of such a series on the other side of it that really takes on these real serious societal issues through these very dysfunctional people?
Well, I can tell you that my own relationship with my own father, I was very angry at my own father.
That you had to move through.
That I had to move through.
And it wasn't all gone, like a miracle in that moment.
But it did open the door.
And it did allow me to begin that process.
And it did... speed it up because I wanted to have that forgiveness.
And Rick is, for the first time in his life two weeks before this show started.
He is someone who is in a moment of doing inventory in his whole life, in a sober moment, looks around and says how did I get here?
Why am I here?
Why am I living this life?
And there in his mind is one person that is responsible for that that permanently altered the course of his life in a very negative way.
And Mike White with all of these stories, but this one in particular.
He brings such a deeply nuanced observation of these experiences in the world.
And he's able to tell them with humor, but with pathos and with anger, in a way that very few people can.
Walton Goggins, this has been such a pleasure to talk with you.
It has been such a pleasure to be in your company.
Thank you so much for this conversation, truly.
Walton Goggins stars in the new film The Uninvited.
It's now available for streaming on demand and in select theaters.
After a short break, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the two-part HBO documentary Pee Wee.
As himself.
This is Fresh Air.
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Paul Rubens, the actor best known for his alter ego of Pee Wee Herman, died in 2023 after a private six-year battle with cancer.
Near the end of his life, Rubens collaborated on a documentary sitting for 40 hours of intimate interviews with director Matt Wolfe.
The result of that effort is the two-part HBO documentary Pee Wee as Himself, which premieres Friday, May 23rd.
TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
When Paul Rubens speaks directly to the camera in Pee Wee as himself framed tightly by the lens and looking frail but still feisty, it's as though he's delivering his last will and testament.
And he says as much.
This is such a dumb thing to say, but, you know, death is just so final.
You know that to be able to like get your message in at the last minute or at some point is incredible.
So what is his message in this new documentary?
On one level, Rubin sets out to explain his artistic process and the inspirations and motivations behind the character of Pee Wee Herman.
On another level, he explores what he gained and lost by refusing to be seen or interviewed as himself.
For the whole time Pee Wee was starring in movies or television.
And most delicately and intriguingly, Paul Rubens provides his point of view about things that rarely were discussed by him during his lifetime, from his private life and sexuality to his infamous arrest on charges of public indecency.
In covering all this ground, Rubens opens up his pack rat archive of personal photos and home movies.
Director Matt Wolfe interviews other people as well, such as Lorraine Newman, who worked with Rubens in the LA improv group The Groundlings, and directors Tim Burton and Judd Apatow, and several actors who appeared in the long-running CBS children's series Pee-Wee's Playhouse, including Lawrence Fishburne, Natasha Lyonne and Esa-Petha Merkerson.
By the time Rubens took his Pee Wee character to Saturday morning TV in 1986, he says he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
And Merkerson says she appreciated it.
I just felt right from the get-go, something that I could do that could be very important and very subliminal would be to just make the show very inclusive and not comment on it in any way.
Captain Kangaroo, Soupy Sales, Howdy Doody.
You know, none of those shows did I see myself reflected.
So that I had the opportunity to be a part of a show that young black kids would see and go.
Oh, there's an image of me here.
That means a lot to me.
The Road to Pee Wee's Playhouse.
An utterly brilliant TV show is relayed by Pee Wee's alter ego in bursts of quick but clear developmental insights.
The shows he watched as a kid...
I was absolutely transformed in such a strong way by so many things in early television.
I wanted to jump into my TV and live in that world.
Say kids, what time is it?
My favorite kid shows were absolutely like Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo and the Mickey Mouse Club.
His inspirations for the name Pee Wee Herman.
I had a little harmonica, a little tiny harmonica, this big, that said Pee Wee on it.
And I thought, Pee Wee.
And I knew this kid when I was little who was like this crazy, like really loud, nutty kid.
And his last name was Herman.
And I thought, Pee Wee Herman sounds so weird. that it sounds real.
It just didn't sound like a made-up name at all, like Cary Grant or like Rock Hudson, or like a made-up name.
It sounded Pee Wee Herman, like if you were making up a name.
Wouldn't you make up a better name than that?
And noting the meteoric rise of Pee Wee from an improv bit at the Groundlings to the star of his own stage show, movie and TV series, his view of the effects of stardom on his own carefully cultivated privacy.
If I was conflicted about sexuality, fame was so much more complicated.
By the time I realized that you trade in anonymity and privacy for success, the ink had dried on my pact with the devil.
All of that imploded in 1991 after an event reported by CBS anchor Dan Rather.
In Sarasota Florida, actor Paul Rubens, better known as TV's Pee Wee Herman, is free on bail after being charged with indecent exposure in an adult movie theater.
CBS announced today that, under the circumstances, the network is dropping scheduled reruns of the program Pee Wee's Playhouse.
Paul Rubens addresses all of this frankly, taking great pains to explain his point of view.
Yet that's not the most compelling or illuminating part of this documentary.
The part that reveals the most especially about Paul Rubens as an artist and a person is his constant tug-of-war with the documentary's director, Matt Wolfe.
At times, Rubens is goofing around during the interviews and being coy.
Other times he tells Wolf he doesn't trust him and would rather get his message out himself without Wolf's editorial interference.
Pee-wee as himself makes clear that Paul Rubens was a control freak of sorts.
And at the end, Rubens finally gets in the last word, unfiltered.
It's worth hearing.
And for this HBO documentary, it's just the right coda.
David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University.
He reviewed the new documentary Pee Wee As Himself, premiering tomorrow on HBO.
With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.
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