For more than two decades now, Walton Goggins has been one of the most consistently great actors around. While he has just become a major household name over the last handful of years, he has been stealing scene after scene from some star-studded casts for quite a while. Even before his turn as Boyd Crowder in Justified, Goggins was crushing it every week on The Shield. As his star flew from TV to the big screen, Goggins continued to solidify himself as one of the industry’s best, and he used a couple of modern Western classics in the 2010s to really hit another level of recognition.
Many remember Goggins’ fantastic performance in Quentin Tarantino’s underrated thriller The Hateful Eight, which hit theaters back in 2015. Even when sharing the screen with legends like Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson, Goggins stood out and often brought the house down. That turn in The Hateful Eight, however, was actually Goggins’ second partnership with Tarantino in a three-year span. In 2012, Goggins had a much smaller supporting role in Django Unchained, but it didn’t take much screen time to prove he was a perfect fit for Tarantino’s style.
Walton Goggins in ‘Django Unchained’
As Justified was reaching the height of its popularity, Goggins landed a role in Tarantino’s revenge Western Django Unchained, which starred the incredible trio of Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Playing the villainous role of Billy Crash, an overseer at the slave plantation owned by Calvin Candy (DiCaprio), Goggins found a way to become so memorably despicable in such a short amount of time, occasionally stealing the attention away from his massive co-stars.
Goggins is only on-screen for about eight-and-a-half minutes of Django Unchained, which accounts for just about 5% of the entire film’s runtime. But he didn’t need much time to leave a lasting impression. Each of Goggins’ moments in the movie is great, but his exchange with Foxx’s titular hero on the way to Candyland remains one of the most memorable — and highly quotable — sequences in the entire film.
After being knocked down a peg by Django, Billy Crash threatens the hero with a dastardly smile, saying, “Oh, I’m gonna go walkin’ in the moonlight with you.” Without missing a beat, Django smoothly claps back with, “You wanna hold my hand?” The entire exchange brings about a moment that’s equal parts chilling and comedic, as it sets the stage for the final chapter of Django’s revenge plot and rescue mission.
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As if the exchange wasn’t cool enough in the movie itself, it also serves as the introduction to the Rick Ross song “100 Black Coffins,” which was recorded for the needle drop at that exact moment in the film.
Goggins and Tarantino
Walton Goggins famously landed the role of Billy Crash after reading the script for Django Unchained and calling in a favor with director Robert Rodriguez — a mutual friend of his and Tarantino’s. As it turns out, Tarantino was already a fan of Goggins’ work, and they quickly moved forward on collaborating with Django Unchained. Given how great Goggins was in the movie, it came as no surprise when he scored an even bigger part in the director’s follow-up, The Hateful Eight.
To this point, those remain the only two films that Tarantino and Goggins have made together — but that isn’t saying a whole lot when you consider the director’s career over the last few years. 2019’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is the only feature Tarantino has directed since The Hateful Eight. He has remained adamant that his next directorial effort will be his last, but that project hasn’t manifested itself just yet. Let’s hope that, when it does finally come to fruition, there’s a part written specifically for Walton Goggins.
- Release Date
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December 25, 2012
- Runtime
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165 minutes
