[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Walton Goggins is opening up about his painful real-life connection to his role in The White Lotus.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
With Sunday’s shocking and climactic conclusion to season 3 of the HBO drama, fans are still attempting to wrap their minds around what happened — and where things went so wrong. Particularly relating to Walton’s character Rick, who visits Thailand in a hell-bent bid to confront and ultimately kill the man he believes murdered his father — only to find out that man WAS his father.
Throughout the entire season, he battles with feelings of lost love as he navigates the predoniminantly Buddhist country in hopes of reclaiming a piece of himself — albeit while putting himself in dangerous situations. But for Walton, this wasn’t just a role… It was the opportunity to immerse himself in a headspace he suffered through nearly two decades ago when he lost his then-wife and traveled to Thailand not long after.
While chatting with Vulture on Monday, the 53-year-old reflected on his former wife Leanne Knight’s death by suicide 18 years ago, which sent him down a path “not so dissimilar from what Rick was looking for.” He told the outlet:
“I went to Thailand 18 years ago after a trauma in my life, looking for peace, looking for some resolution that was not so dissimilar from what Rick was looking for. The circumstances were dramatically different. I was a year into a relationship with my now-wife, and I was as lost as Rick is lost. I had nothing for my partner.”
In The White Lotus, Rick is on vacation with his girlfriend Chelsea, played by Aimee Lou Wood, who consistently comes second to his battle with his own inner demons. He continued:
“I understood, intimately, Rick’s frame of mind. I read it on the page and I thought, ‘The universe brought this to me for a reason, because I understand him, and I love him, and I love people like him. I don’t think he’s alone in the world.’”
In an Instagram post Walton shared on Sunday to commemorate the end of the season, he wrote, “In the depths of our despair there is always beauty around us.” And that’s a thought he expanded on during his interview:
“It’s up to us to see it. That was my journey, and that’s Rick’s journey. We’re not the only people in the fucking world that has experienced that. It is all of our journeys. Whether you’ve lost a job, whether you’ve lost a spouse, whether you were molested, whether you were abandoned, we carry these traumas. We all have them. We are all so much more similar than we think.”
How profound… It sounds like the universe truly did bring this role right to his doorstep for a reason.
With The Hateful Eight star’s vulnerable comments, an interview from February with GQ has resurfaced in which he opens up about what the first few years after his then-wife’s death looked like for him:
“I spent the next three years looking for an excuse — not to end it, but certainly putting myself in situations that were questionable, not with drugs or anything like that, just life experiences and traveling. And I really went all over the world.”
He revealed that some of those places he traveled to were the EXACT same places he ended up in to shoot The White Lotus:
“The first island we were staying on, I realized, ‘I’ve been on this road before.’ And then the next island we went to, I realized, ‘I’ve definitely been on this beach before. I know this boardwalk.’ And all of the things kept coming back.”
That’s so WILD. He told the outlet that the final scene he shot took place in Bangkok on a dock he arrived at “20 years ago in so much f**king pain.”
What a full-circle moment… He noted:
“I think I haven’t had the time to fully unpack the symmetry between those two people showing up at the same place, separated by 20 years. And a wife and a kid and peace and all the rest of it.”
The Django Unchained star added:
“I wish I could hug that guy. I wish I could whisper in his ear, ‘You’re going to be OK. Life continues … if you can just hold on and lean into it and keep walking the walk that you’re walking, and keep looking for the answers.’”
Walton has now been married to Nadia Conners since 2011, with whom he shares a son. He called his late wife Leanne’s death a “very complicated story,” noting:
“Ultimately it was revealed the decision that she’d made. And yeah — I thought it was really unrecoverable for me. Life on the other side of that.”
It sounds like Walton was able to gain a lot from revisiting the location he was in nearly two decades ago — filled with so much anguish at the time — now healed and able to experience some level of catharsis… Too bad the same wasn’t true for his character Rick, who met his ultimate fate.
What are YOUR thoughts on this crazy coincidence, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments down below.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, help is available. Consider contacting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, by calling, texting, or chatting, or go to 988lifeline.org
[Images via HBO/Max]
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