Walton Goggins shares a tragic connection to his “White Lotus” character, Rick.
The actor opened up about taking his own emotional trip to Thailand “after a trauma” — his first wife Leanne Knight’s suicide — two decades before filming Season 3 of the hit show.
Rick, notably, is in Thailand with his girlfriend, Chelsea (portrayed by Aimee Lou Wood), to confront the man he believes killed his father, who ends up being his father, and dies after murdering him.
As for Goggins, he went to Thailand “looking for peace, looking for some resolution that was not so dissimilar from what Rick was looking for,” he told Vulture Monday.
While the “Justified” alum, 53, called “the circumstances … dramatically different,” he said he was “as lost as Rick is lost” and “had nothing” for his now-wife, Nadia Conners, whom he was one year into dating.
“I understood, intimately, Rick’s frame of mind,” he noted, explaining that they both needed to learn that “in the depths of our despair, there is always beauty around us.”
In the wake of his comments, Goggins’ February interview with GQ resurfaced in which he described traveling all over, beginning with Thailand, after Knight died by suicide.
“I spent the next three years looking for an excuse — not to end it, but certainly putting myself in situations that were questionable, not with drugs or anything like that, just life experiences and traveling,” Goggins recalled. “And I really went all over the world.”
The “Righteous Gemstones” alum told the outlet about revisiting many of those spots in Thailand while filming “White Lotus.”
He remembered, “The first island we were staying on, I realized, ‘I’ve been on this road before.’ And then the next island we went to, I realized, ‘I’ve definitely been on this beach before. I know this boardwalk.’ And all of the things kept coming back.”
In fact, Goggins shot his last scene in Bangkok in front of a dock and hotel where he arrived to the country “20 years ago in so much f–king pain.”
He noted, “I think I haven’t had the time to fully unpack the symmetry between those two people showing up at the same place, separated by 20 years. And a wife and a kid and peace and all the rest of it.”
The Emmy nominee, who shares son Augustus with Conners, added, “I wish I could hug that guy. I wish I could whisper in his ear, ‘You’re going to be OK. Life continues … if you can just hold on and lean into it and keep walking the walk that you’re walking, and keep looking for the answers.’”
Goggins also addressed Knight’s death in the vulnerable profile, calling her November 2004 passing a “very complicated story.”
He said, “Ultimately it was revealed the decision that she’d made. And yeah — I thought it was really unrecoverable for me. Life on the other side of that.”
Goggins and Knight wed in 2001, and she went missing — and was ultimately discovered to have died by suicide — three years later.
The “Django Unchained” star married Conners in 2011, with their baby boy arriving that same year.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.