‘White Lotus' Star Walton Goggins Went to the Hospital After Snake Bite on Set: ‘Am I Dying a Slow Death?'
In the third episode of 'The White Lotus' Season 3, Walton Goggins liberates a bunch of caged, venomous snakes, resulting in his character's girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) getting bitten before being rushed to the hospital. But in real life, Goggins was the one bitten by a snake.
The actor, who plays miserable Thailand tourist Rick Hatchett on the HBO series, told the story on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live,' prefacing it by saying, 'I am terrified of snakes.'
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'I don't just have a phobia, it's like a missing link when it comes to snakes,' Goggins said. 'There's something, like, genetically wrong with me when it comes to snakes.'
The scene, which takes place at a snake sanctuary of sorts, required Goggins to open various terrariums and pick up the snakes to let them free. A snake handler on set gave him a rundown on which of the reptiles were fine to touch, and which 'could kill you.'
'For Rick Hatchett, the snakes represented him, and metaphorically speaking, he was releasing these snakes because he wants someone to release him from his pain,' Goggins said, setting up the scene. 'That meant nothing on the day.'
'When I picked up the snake for the very first time, I started crying uncontrollably,' Goggins said. When he was pulling one of the snakes out, it 'didn't want to come,' lunging toward Goggins and biting him.
'I wish I could have been cool,' Goggins said of his reaction to the bite, but instead he yelled, 'Oh my God, I've been bit by a snake!'
Since Goggins had nine hours left to shoot that day, his wound was treated with some Neosporin and he moved on to the next take. But the next day, a 'White Lotus' producer called him and said, 'We've been thinking about it … maybe you should go to the hospital.'
Goggins replied: 'For what? You said the snake was non-venomous. Am I dying a slow death?' Nonetheless, he did end up going to the hospital and was given a precautionary shot.
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Oz is then forced to face the truth or else Sofia will maim his mother, but he still wouldn't come clean, leading Francis to stab him in the gut and forsake him before suffering a catastrophic stroke. 'Sofia understands that the gravest injury you can administer to someone is mental because you can't escape that,' says Milioti. Frustrated by his brothers' insensitivity to his clubfoot during a fateful game of hide-and-seek, Young Oz's lack of impulse control factored into his decision to trap Jack and Benny in a water overflow tunnel. This is the same impulsivity that led him to murder Alberto Falcone three-plus decades later. Farrell knows Young Oz is responsible for the demise of his brothers, but he offers him some benefit of the doubt, at least until he allows hours to go by without sounding the alarm to his mother. 'I'm not excusing him, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't an architectural fucking engineer when he was 10,' says Farrell. 'I don't think he necessarily knew that, in closing one sewer gate, it was going to be hermetically sealed and the water was going to rise twenty feet, killing his brothers.' Reeling from his mother's newly persistent vegetative state and how Sofia exposed his Achilles' heel through her, Oz decides that family of any kind is only going to hold him back from achieving true kingpin status. Thus, in the series' most gut-wrenching moment, he strangles Victor to death just after the young man expressed gratitude for their found family. 'He's always been this man. We've just been a little bit forgiving of him,' says LeFranc. 'When Oz kills Victor, it's like he's ripping his own heart out, and it's appalling. There's no justification for it. I hope that it leaves the audience to question why we ever trusted a man like this.' Farrell, despite being 'nowhere close' to starting prep work, will next reprise his character in the long-gestating The Batman Part II. He also notes it would be hard to reposition Oz as a protagonist in a potential Penguin season two after ruthlessly murdering the pure-hearted Victor and contributing to his own mother's unresponsiveness. 'I certainly think it makes [a second season] more difficult. [Killing Vic] is a very hard thing to claw back from,' says Farrell. 'It's not impossible, but it's a tougher hill to climb.' As for the physical impact the show had on him, one of the somewhat overlooked details in Farrell's performance is his Penguin-like waddle because of Oz's clubbed right foot. Farrell had to wear a supportive leg brace for full effect. 'I wasn't as smart as I could have been, which is not the first time I've said that in relation to work or life,' jokes Farrell. 'I did have some issues with my hips for a while, and my pelvis was a bit out of line, but I sorted it out afterward.' In an era where the limited series is cheekily referred to as the new pilot, Milioti is excited about her character's still-undetermined future, whether that's a Penguin season two, The Batman Part II or a Sofia-led series that explores a relationship with her recently revealed half-sister, Selina Kyle (The Batman's Zoë Kravitz). In the concluding moments of the finale, Sofia receives a letter from Selina, providing her with a glimmer of hope after Oz finagled her readmittance to Arkham. 'I would love to continue to play Sofia in any way,' says Milioti. 'I would also love to see Sofia and Selina team up and wreak complete and utter havoc on Gotham. I don't think we've ever seen that in the Batman universe.' A version of this story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. 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