Walton Goggins 'Justified': 'I participated in a golden era of TV'!

Walton Goggins has played in many series, shows and films. He is very talented actor who worked hard to get success. Walton Goggins owns one of the coolest characters on television. When Emmy-nominated actor Walton Goggins first took on the role of Boyde Crowder in the FX drama Justified, there was no promise that he would return beyond the pilot episode. Yet for the show’s writers and for the actor himself, there was richness to his character that could not be denied. Now, after four seasons in his role as the elusive and mysterious nemesis of Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), some have called him the coolest character on television.

In 2010, Walton explained what made the show so unique beyond the superb writing of legendary author Elmore Leonard, whose short story inspired the series: “I think another reason that people will hopefully tune in and stay tuned in will be an opportunity to explore a world that isn’t being explored on the rest of television, and that’s the South, this very specific place in Harlan County, Kentucky,” Goggins said at the time. “It’s nice to see things and to see people reflected in our art that are not just from urban areas… I think it’s important to reflect all cultures in our society, and I think that that will be an opportunity for people that don’t live in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago to see something that is familiar to them.”

Goggins talks about his Emmy-nominated role of Boyd Crowder on the hit crime drama, the latest season and his hopes for Justified's future, how it feels to have been part of a "golden era of television".

At the end of season four, Boyd had his dream life with Ava snatched away - is he his own worst enemy or is it just rotten luck?

"In some ways, at the end of season four, Boyd has everything he ever wanted and [yet has] lost the thing that was most important to him, so I think it's a matter of Boyd's own karma, but I also think it's a matter of Boyd really being naive in the ways that the world really works."

We also saw Boyd take up the heroin trade from Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns) - how will that shake things up for him going forward?

"I think this is a man who, in season five, is going to be very angry at discovering the truth about the world and is going to act out, because he has been put in his place and not been given an opportunity to break a glass ceiling that he thought he could shatter. Season four was very pivotal for Boyd and for Raylan Givens and for Ava (Joelle Carter) and I think it will really propel us to the end of our show."

The fourth season of Justified was very well received - it didn't dip in quality as some shows can in later seasons. What do you credit that to?

"A lot of hard work by a lot of really talented people. I think we all agree that season three was not our best season, that season two was extremely strong... and I'm very proud of season one, especially from episode six or seven on.

"I think season four was an opportunity - based on the direction that Graham Yost, our showrunner, wanted to go in - to bring the show back down to basics. Not bringing in a big guest actor for 12 or 13 episodes, but to bring it back to the relationship between Raylan and Boyd - and Ava Crowder is a real big part of that.

"Once we went in that direction and began really mining their history - who these people are and what this friendship is about and what really makes these people tick... that's what I find most interesting in any show that is serialized, and we all worked very hard not to drop the ball on a lot of those fronts and I'm really proud of it."

The season five premieres on FX in January - how much do you know about what's coming up for Boyd?

"I know quite a bit. I know the broad strokes, but the devil's in the detail. We'll see - we start filming in October and I think we're all very excited to get back to work. I don't think it'll disappoint! I have a pretty clear understanding of what it is I want to say - as Boyd Crowder - at the end of this whole journey and I think Graham does, and Tim for that matter with Raylan. I think... at least, I hope, that it'll be worth the participation."

Prior to playing Boyd, you starred as Shane Vendrell on another FX series, The Shield - how did that part transform your career and the roles you're playing now?

"It gave me an opportunity to really understand how deep you could go with the exploration of a character. Luckily, there were a lot of people out there who really dug that experience, so from that angle, it raised my profile, but more importantly, as an artist, it allowed me to really understand how special this experience can be and how you don't take a word or a scene for granted, but you walk away having left everything on the field.

"That's how all of us, collectively as actors and writers, on The Shield felt - and that's certainly the attitude we bring to Justified as well. It's all very sweet and it's all fleeting in the bigger picture, and we love what we do."

There are some parallels between the two shows, as well, given how Shane and Boyd were not originally intended to be major characters...

"Yeah, but I think that's where the similarities stop - these are two completely different people. But I am kind of amazed - more often than not, lightning only strikes once in a person's career, where you got the opportunity to play a character that people applaud, and here I have been given two opportunities back-to-back.

"I try not to think about life after Boyd Crowder, but try to think that something else will come along. It actually already has - I got to play a transgender character, Venus Van Damme, on my friend's [Kurt Sutter] show Sons of Anarchy and I'm as in love with her as I am Boyd Crowder and Shane Vendrell.

"So I've really come to this place in my career - and spiritually as a person - where I just realize how lucky I am to get to do what I do for a living. Like I said, I just don't take it for granted. I'm really eating everything on the table, for the first time in my life as an artist, and it feels good, man."

Kurt Sutter recently said that he wants Venus back on Sons of Anarchy - do you think we'll see you back in that wig and dress?

"I'd put my money on it, without saying anything more than that! I'd like those odds!"

Between The Shield and Justified, you've spent 10 years on-and-off as a series regular on television. Do you feel the urge now to do something else?

"Well, y'know, I came from film - that's really how I made my living since I got in the business. I was not the kind of person that television was really open to when I first got in the business - I'm not conventionally good-looking and I'm a little strange!

"But I was here long enough for the landscape of television to change significantly and I'm grateful that it changed when it did, and I was the age that I was when it changed. I feel like I've participated in this golden era of television, since its latest inception.

"But movies are something that I am really passionate about and I love dipping in and out of. I made four movies over the course of the last 10 years and I really like being behind the camera - that's something that I feel like I will continue to do.

"It might be in television - on a show that I just sold that I'm working on now- or a movie that I'm gonna direct that my wife has written called Against the Sun so... life is full of possibilities. I'm just happy to be walking in the sunshine!"