During the production of the third season of HBO’s The White Lotus, Walton Goggins reveals that he was bitten by a snake.
Walton Goggins isn’t a big fan of snakes, so obviously, he would be the one to suffer a snake bit during the production of The White Lotus season 3.
“I don’t just have a phobia – it’s like a missing link when it comes to snakes,” Goggins told Jimmy Kimmel. “I am terrified of snakes — really, really terrified — and there’s something, like, genetically wrong with me when it comes to snakes.” The actor was filming a scene in which his character starts opening snake cages, and he was naturally apprehensive about it, even with a handler giving him the lowdown on each snake.
“All I’m thinking about is the very first cage where the snake will kill you — ‘don’t open that’ — and then the rest of it just goes out of my mind,” Goggins said. “And then they yelled action, and it’s like, ‘Okay, don’t open the first one because it’ll kill you.’ The next one, ‘Was it green or was it brown? Which one has a big, big bite?’” Unfortunately, one of those snakes didn’t appreciate being handled by Goggins and promptly turned around and bit him. “I wish I could’ve been cool — like I fancy myself a pretty cool guy. Like, ‘Hey, yeah, I got a snakebite,’” he said. “This was my reaction: I swear to God, it was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been bit by a snake! Oh my God!’“
The medical team handled the bite on-site, and Goggins went back to work, but at the end of the day, he got a call from a producer who suggested that he should get the bite properly checked out at the 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 explained. “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?’” Thankfully, Goggins is still with us.
The White Lotus season 3 premiered last month, and our own Alex Maidy said that series is “as good, if not better, than it has ever been.” He continued, “Not as laugh-out-loud funny as the first season, the new season of The White Lotus continues to mine the darkly dramatic side of secrets and lies that friends and family keep from one another for a masterful season of storytelling. If you loved the first and second seasons of The White Lotus, your jaw will drop when you watch this new season. I don’t know how Mike White continues to improve on an already brilliant series, but season three is the best yet, and I cannot wait to see how it ends.” You can check out the rest of Maidy’s review right here.
