Thanks to standout performances in Justified, The Righteous Gemstones, and now Fallout, where he chews the scenery as 200-year-old bounty hunter The Ghoul, Walton Goggins has become the go-to actor for any project looking to add impeccable charm and/or a side of menace.
However, like most actors of his generation, Goggins didn’t instantly became a star. He had to work his way through bit roles that he financed with side jobs that he admits to working longer than he had to because that’s just how he was raised.
“You know, I’m a poor kid from Georgia,” Goggins told Business Insider. “I come from very humble beginnings and I’ve never been afraid of work in my life. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 19 years old. I had $300 in my pocket.”
According to Goggins, he started working at a health club on his very first morning in L.A., and he never stopped hustling since.
“I did that until I decided I was going to start my own business, and I started a valet parking company. I had that for a couple of years. I sold cowboy boots. I became a personal trainer. But along with all of that I was very fortunate to start working as an actor straight away. But I’m conservative, fiscally speaking, so I continued to keep working side jobs and structured my life in a way that I had a job that allowed me to walk away whenever an opportunity to act came up.”
“I actually continued to have side jobs for five years past the point of needing those jobs,” Goggins continued. “I took all the money I was making from storytelling and just put that in the bank. I lived off what I was making on these side gigs. That’s how I structured my money.”
Once he booked a role in The Apostle alongside Robert Duvall, that’s when Goggins finally decided to live off just his acting work.
“I felt confident enough that I had enough cushion to really go for it,” he said.
Fallout season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
(Via Business Insider)