Key Takeaways:
- Actor Walton Goggins has been a familiar face in Hollywood since the 2000s but first moved to Los Angeles in 1991.
- As he took acting classes, he supported himself by working at LA Fitness then opening his own valet parking business.
- Side gigs are a thing of the past for Goggins these days. He could earn his first Emmy Award on Sunday for his performance on The White Lotus Season 3.
Long before Walton Goggins filmed his Emmy-nominated performance as the mysteriously troubled tourist Rick Hatchett in the third season of the hit HBO show The White Lotus, he was a 19-year-old college dropout who moved to Los Angeles on a whim with $300 to his name and a dream of making it big.
The Alabama native was attending college at Georgia Southern University when a credit card offer from American Express changed his trajectory. “I got this invitation from American Express, believe it or not, to take on debt,” Goggins explained during a 2019 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “I got pre-approved for I don’t know like a max of like probably $500.”
The card came with more than spending power, though. It offered two round-trip tickets. “One was $99 east of the Mississippi, and the other was $199 west of the Mississippi,” he said. “This was a time in Atlanta where it cost, like, $1,100 to fly from Atlanta to Los Angeles. And I saw it not as an opportunity to buy a bunch of televisions, but to leave. Like that was it. I was out. I quit college.”
He landed in California in 1991, but now what he needed was a job.
He initially sustained himself and paid for acting classes with a part-time job at LA Fitness. He would open the gym at 5 a.m. before getting off at 9 a.m. The gig paid minimum wage, then $4.25 an hour, and was ultimately short-lived.
“After being there for a month, they said, ‘Okay, we’ll make you a part-time salesperson.’ And I looked around and I said, ‘No, I’m not going to do this anymore,’” he told the Associated Press in 2018. “I started a valet parking company because I needed my freedom. I needed more time.”
His entrepreneurial endeavor thrived. “I wound up having about six restaurants and a couple parking garages around town,” he told the AP. “I didn’t make a lot of money, but I did have my freedom.”
His business also enabled him to help other actors and create a community. “I was able to employ a lot of other actors, and we were all kind of there for each other. And when anybody got a job, they just disappeared.”
During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2018, Goggins shared a memorable story from his valet parking business that involved “Kiss From a Rose” singer Seal.
“I parked a number of celebrities’ cars, but one that really kind of stands out was Seal,” Goggins said. “He comes in, and he’s on a date, clearly, with this beautiful woman.”
As the date dragged on, the pair ended up being Goggins’s final customers of the night. The aspiring actor couldn’t leave until he returned Seal’s keys, but Goggins had a date of his own that night as well. Finally, he found an opportunity to approach the singer.
“I said... ‘You know what man, I have a date. I have a date tonight that I’m running late for. Do you mind if I just give you your keys. Is that cool? Is that alright?’” Goggins recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah, buddy.’ And then he slipped me a $50 bill. And he said, ‘Have a great meal!’ That how cool this guy is.”
Eventually, Goggins shuttered his valet parking business and ventured back into fitness as a personal trainer. He and his business partners offered to pay the LA Fitness owner to allow them to train members for a fee. “We were the first three people I think to do it in all of LA Fitness and wound up making almost $65 an hour in 1993. That’s a lot of money,” he told the AP before joking, “Maybe I’m only an entrepreneur—who said I’m an actor!”
Emily Shiffer has worked as a writer for over 10 years, covering everything from health and wellness to entertainment and celebrities. She previously was on staff at SUCCESS, Men's Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women's Health, Runner's World, PEOPLE, and more. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in magazine journalism at the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, surfing, and long walks on the beach with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.
