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Walton Goggins says he not only confronted his greatest fear while filming The White Lotus, he took a bite for it.
The actor plays the grumpy Rick Hatchett in the third season of Mike White’s satirical dark comedy and does not seem to be having a good time on holiday despite the efforts of girlfriend Chelsea, played by Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood.
In the season’s third episode, Rick, under the influence of cannabis, ends up releasing caged, venomous snakes from a snake farm in Thailand. While he gets off scot-free, Chelsea gets bitten and is taken to hospital.
In real life, though, Goggins says he was the one to get bitten.
“I had the snake handler right off camera because when I picked up the snake for the very first time, I started crying. Like uncontrollably,” Goggins said.
“And then, right when we are getting ready to do that very first scene, they kind of walked you through the entire experience, they’re walking around the cages, and they’re like, ‘Don’t touch this cage because this snake will kill you. This cage here, there’s some snakes in here, but don’t touch the brown ones.’
“All I’m thinking about is the very first cage where the snake will kill you, and the rest of it just goes out of my mind. Then, they yell ‘Action’. And it’s like, ‘Don’t open the first one because they’ll kill you. Was it green or was it brown? Which one has a big, big bite?’”
Goggins went on to describe how a state of panic made him grab a snake that did not seem to enjoy what was happening to it. “I started to pull the green one and as I was pulling the snake out he didn’t want to come, right? So, the snake turns around and he bit me.”
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Goggins described his reaction, wishing he “could’ve been cool”. “I fancy myself a pretty cool guy. Like, ‘Hey, yeah, I got a snakebite.’ This was my reaction: I swear to God, it was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been bit by a snake! Oh my God!’”
Filming went on for the day after the bite was treated with “a little Neosporin”, but Goggins then received a call from the producers who thought that it might be safer to have the actor go to hospital.
“I finally got it out of my system — it’s like, ‘You’re okay.’ I get a phone call from the producer saying, ‘Hey, you know what? We’ve been thinking about it and we’re thinking maybe you should go to the hospital,’” Goggins recalled.
“I said, ‘For what? You said the snake was nonvenomous, right? Am I dying a slow death? Is there something you know I don’t know?’”
The producer then advised him to get a tetanus shot, just to be safe.
“So, I did go to the hospital, and I got a shot,” he said.
Kimmel responded: “So, in other words, they got a call from the lawyers at HBO.”
Goggins replied that it was “exactly what happened” and he had to sign a release.
“And they made me sign that day! Somebody just kinda came up — ‘I’m sorry you’re not feeling too good. Listen, can you just sign this little bitty piece of paper?’ I thought, ‘You want my autograph, or I’ve just lost all of my rights?’”
The third season of The White Lotus also stars Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey as the wealthy Tim and Victoria Ratliff, with Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook and Sam Nivola playing their children.
Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon and Leslie Bibb play old friends reuniting for a vacation, while Tayme Thapthimthong and Blackpink’s Lisa round out the cast playing hotel staffers.
The new season has earned rave reviews, with The Independent’s TV critic Nick Hilton writing in a four-star appraisal: “Some will prefer Hawaii, some will prefer Sicily, but Thailand will have its own fans. What it shows is that The White Lotus is a franchise now so totally in command of its own appeal it can be transferred anywhere.”
The White Lotus airs on Sundays in the US on HBO and Mondays in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW.
