It’s tough to imagine anyone other than Walton Goggins playing “Justified” icon Boyd Crowder. But, according to Goggins himself, the Emmy nominee initially had some reservations about taking the role of the FX series’ career criminal.
There were many great shows released during the 2010s, but Graham Yost’s “Justified” holds a special place in the hearts of viewers who gravitate toward crime dramas with a Western flavor. Based on characters created by Elmore Leonard, the series follows U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyplant) as he delivers trigger-happy justice to the criminals of Harlan County, Ky. Raylan’s quest to maintain law and order also brings him into contact with Boyd, an old friend with ambitions to control organized crime in the area.
Boyd has since become one of Goggins’ career-defining roles, but it took a minute to accept the part. In a 2015 interview with Uproxx, the actor admitted that he had reservations about playing the character, so what made him almost turn down such a great part?
“The first time I read the script, what Graham did to it was unbelievable, but I felt that there was no way they would let me do it the way I wanted to do it, so I initially passed because I just did not want to perpetuate a stereotype of a hick type of Southerner that I have, more often than not, portrayed coming up in my career,” he said. “That’s how I made a living very early on.”
When Boyd is first introduced on “Justified,” he is a white supremacist who takes advantage of neo-Nazis to achieve his goals. Later on, though, Boyd becomes a reformed Christian who preaches the gospel while running drug rings and other dodgy schemes that go against the Bible’s teachings. The crook is a complex character; Goggins nails the part.
Walton Goggins is tired of Hollywood stereotypes
Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) holding cigarettes in Justified – FX
Walton Goggins’ reservations about playing Boyd Crowder stemmed from him wanting to branch out as a performer, but he was also conscious about further contributing to a Hollywood trend of which he isn’t a fan. During the aforementioned interview with Uproxx, he noted that it isn’t just southerners who get typecast in Tinsel Town, and it can take a long time for actors to get offered more interesting roles.
“If you’re from the Bronx, if you’re Italian, and you come out to Los Angeles, more often than not you’re going to play a mobster. If you’re from an Arab country you’re going to play a suicide bomber,” Goggins said. “Whatever it is, whatever part of this country that you come from when you first come to this town, to this business, you will perpetuate the stereotype of your culture. That’s just how it is. That’s how we do things. You have to earn your way out of it.”
Boyd became a mainstay on “Justified” — and even returned for a cameo in the “Justified: City Primeval” spin-off. What’s more, the actor’s oeuvre has expanded since then, with projects like “The Righteous Gemstones” and “The White Lotus” further removing him from stereotypical southerner roles. Elsewhere, Goggins is the highlight of Prime Video’s “Fallout” TV series, in which he plays a bounty hunting ghoul — a character so mutated that it’s difficult to associate him with any other role Goggins has embodied throughout the years. He has come a long way since “Justified,” but the neo-Western drama is still one of his best roles.
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