Is that really Walton Goggins waterskiing stark naked in 'Righteous Gemstones'?

USA Today

31-03-2025

Is that really Walton Goggins waterskiing stark naked in 'Righteous Gemstones'?
Walton Goggins has let it all hang out before in HBO's "The Righteous Gemstones," Danny McBride's satire on a megachurch family (Sundays, 10 ET/PT and streaming on Max). But nothing like in the opening sequence of this week's episode.
Goggins, 53, who plays octogenarian Gemstone relative Baby Billy Freeman, is seen waterskiing in his birthday suit. It looks like Goggins threw caution to the wind to bare all.
Not a chance. "There's a history there with this show, in Season 1 I stand up in a tub with my penis hanging out, and then there was the scene in last week's episode (in which Baby Billy is nude while getting dressed," says Goggins. "But no, that is not my penis!"
Goggins has even had to field diplomatic calls from friends on the topic. "The first time I did that, people called me," he says. "One was a casting director friend of mine, and she said, 'You have a beautiful body, Walton,' and I said 'What are you talking about? That's my 80-year-old stand-in's body and penis!'"
When asked about the waterskiing sequence, McBride laughs. He's asked a lot of his friend Goggins (the two shared lead roles in HBO's acerbic 2016-17 comedy "Vice Principals"), but even he knows where to draw the line.
"No, I can confirm that Walton has never showed his penis on the show," he says. "There's always a body double, and never the same elderly penis."
But are they real, or just prostheses? Danny McBride answers that riddle
So those are not prostheses, the go-to for nudity in Hollywood, whether depicting Mark Wahlberg's member in 1997's "Boogie Nights" or in a recent episode of HBO's "The White Lotus," where Jason Isaacs accidentally flashes his family. (Goggins also co-stars in the current "Lotus" season as a character far darker than the bombastic Baby Billy, one who's in no danger of flashing anyone let alone his girlfriend.)
"No, no prostheses," says McBride, who can't resist a trademark wisecrack. "Oh yeah, brother, those are red hot" organs.
How did he even come up with the idea of putting Goggins on skis? Simple, the actor offered. "He told me he could do the slalom like that for real, and I said, 'OK, that's the cold open right there, you doing that, nude.'"
If you're wondering why Baby Billy Freeman is out there waterskiing nude in the first place, Goggins has a theory.
"It's kind of the same with the character I played in 'Vice Principals,' (Lee Russell)," says Goggins. "Both he and Baby Billy are deeply insecure human beings that just want to be relevant in a world where they don't feel relevant at all."