Walton Goggins joins GQ to reveal his 10 Essentials. The American actor breaks down his daily essentials: from his Stetson hat (“this hat was a gift from my buddy Sam Rockwell”) to his Backgammon set (“it’s not the game, it’s the communion you have with the other person that’s playing”). Watch the full episode of GQ’s 10 Essentials, as Walton Goggins reveals 10 things he can’t live without.
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00:00Um, but it is a...
00:02Lucy! Come here, girl.
00:06It's my dog.
00:12What's up, GQ? I'm Walton Goggins.
00:14These are my essentials.
00:24This hat. This hat was a gift from my buddy Sam Rockwell
00:28almost 14 years ago when we were doing this movie in New Mexico.
00:32He actually got it for himself and we were at a party one night
00:35and I commented on how much I liked it
00:38and he took it off his head and he put it on my head
00:41and he said, it looks better on you than it does on me,
00:43so why don't you keep it?
00:45And I have kept it for 14 years.
00:48It's a Red Smith Stetson. It's like a state trooper hat.
00:51And you can see how often I've worn it because of all that sweat.
00:54And if you've seen me in an airport,
00:56chances are you've seen me wearing this hat.
01:03Wow, look at this.
01:04Who doesn't want to keep a lighter in their pocket?
01:06I happen to live in a house that has seven fireplaces,
01:10so whenever I need a light one, I have it right here.
01:14This lighter is a prop that I use in The White Lotus season three.
01:20Now I chose this lighter as an essential because
01:23any actor who's been around for a long time,
01:25you always take a token.
01:27It's because it reminds you of how valuable that experience was to you.
01:31This particular person that I play in The White Lotus
01:35is very near and dear to my heart
01:37and this is what I chose to take from him.
01:40I can't wait for you to see it
01:41and for you to see how I use it in the show.
01:47You know what's essential to me is reading.
01:49Books are very, very, very important to me.
01:51I try to have at least one going,
01:54if not two at a time,
01:55but I picked a few that are kind of important to me.
01:59Herman Hesse, I'm a big fan of.
02:01This is Siddhartha and I keep it on my bedside table.
02:04I also have Steppenwolf close by.
02:06Hemingway, obviously, is a classic.
02:09Maybe you've heard of him.
02:10Movable Feast.
02:12We spend a lot of time in Paris
02:14and Hemingway is just someone who's very, very close to my heart,
02:17but there is no other author that is more important to me
02:21than this guy right here.
02:23W. Somerset Maugham.
02:24The name of this book is The Moon in Sixpence.
02:26It is the one book that I will give any artist as a gift.
02:31I think that this book should be compulsory,
02:34really, for every artist in every discipline of art
02:37because of what it says about what we do
02:40and how it's going to come out regardless of,
02:44even if you try to suppress it, art just has to come out.
02:47And I love this book and this author so much
02:50that my wife and I named our son Augustus Somerset Goggins
02:56after Somerset Maugham.
02:58So, yeah, pick it up.
03:03Whoa.
03:04This is one of the most essential things in my life.
03:08You know what it is?
03:09It's an orange Sharpie.
03:12And you know why it's essential?
03:14Because this is the only color highlighter
03:16that I use to highlight every script that I have.
03:20And it's really weird, man.
03:21My thoughts, my brain opens up
03:24whenever I see this color on my lines.
03:27I travel with, like, 20 of these things
03:29just in case one of them kind of goes bad
03:31and I have, like, four or five in my bag
03:33in case I leave it in my costume or something like that.
03:36I'm just going to put you over here, Sharpie.
03:38Don't go anywhere because I'm going to need you later.
03:40The right story finds the right actor
03:43and finds the right director
03:45and finds the right DP and cameraman
03:47and crew and location and all the rest of it.
03:50But you can't do any of it without this orange Sharpie.
03:57Passport.
03:58One of the most essential things in my life
04:01for a variety of reasons.
04:03The only thing I ever really wanted to do in my life
04:05was see the world,
04:06and I dreamed of having a passport
04:08that was filled with stamps from all over the world.
04:12And that is indeed what has happened.
04:14This particular passport is my latest one,
04:16and there's stamps on almost every page,
04:18but it's not my first one.
04:20It's my fourth one, my fifth one.
04:23The other reason why it's so important to me
04:25is when I am not working,
04:27I do like to get out of the country
04:29and just go explore favorite places in the world.
04:32I love America, you know?
04:34I do.
04:35I think it's one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
04:37I love Morocco, India.
04:39I love Namibia.
04:40I love South Africa.
04:41I spent some time in Mozambique.
04:43It's one of the greatest pleasures in my life.
04:47Maybe just one of the greatest games in the world,
04:50backgammon.
04:51This is a travel set that a really good friend of mine
04:53gave to me.
04:54It's this old little vintage Pierre Cardin set.
04:58Oh my God!
04:59Where has this been?
05:00I've been looking for this for years!
05:02Oh my God!
05:03I picked this up,
05:04I didn't even know that this was there.
05:06I swear to God,
05:07I've been looking for this for like four years.
05:09This is a piece of stone
05:11that I got in Hanoi.
05:13Unbelievable.
05:14And you know what these are?
05:15These are Scopa cards,
05:17right here,
05:18that I got off this card game
05:20I was invited to play in Marrakesh
05:2322 years ago.
05:25Oh my God!
05:26This is amazing!
05:28We just moved to New York, see?
05:30So I just packed shit in places that would keep it safe.
05:32And I haven't been able to play this game since.
05:34But the game itself
05:36is one of the most important games in the world to me.
05:39Oh my God!
05:40I just found something else.
05:41I can't believe it!
05:42This is like,
05:43you have no idea.
05:45This is an owl
05:46that my wife gave me.
05:48A paperweight.
05:49Is there anything else in here?
05:51Whoa, I don't know.
05:52There is!
05:53Oh my God!
05:54This was a gift
05:55from this woman in Namibia.
05:57She was a Himba woman.
05:59It's on my Instagram from when I was there.
06:01And she gave me these three stones
06:03and I had the other two
06:04but I didn't know where this one went.
06:06I can't believe this has happened.
06:07It's only because of you, GQ,
06:09that I pulled this thing out
06:11to talk about how important
06:13backgammon is to my life.
06:15Hold on, there's one other thing in here.
06:17It's a treasure.
06:18I have no idea what this is.
06:19Oh my God!
06:20These are Christmas ornaments
06:23that my mom gave me.
06:25You might shed a tear because
06:27I put them away because they mean so much to me.
06:29She gave them to me a while ago
06:32so I must have packed them in here
06:34because I didn't want anything to happen to them.
06:36It's not the game that's essential.
06:39It's the communion that you have
06:42with the other person that you're playing the game with.
06:45And what's essential is what's happening right in here.
06:48I don't know about you guys
06:50but I didn't plan this shit.
06:55This watch means a great deal to me
06:57because it is the first really nice thing
06:59that I bought myself
07:00and I thought I was buying it for me
07:03but as it turns out
07:05not knowing that I was going to have a child
07:07I really kind of bought it for him.
07:09It is a generational gift
07:11and one that you bequeath to your child.
07:14I'm not a watch guy
07:16and it's a vintage.
07:17It's a Rolex
07:18and I never took it off my wrist for years
07:20until I got this new watch
07:23about three months ago.
07:25But this is one of the most important things in my life.
07:31You know what this is?
07:32It's a piece of brass
07:34but it's not just any piece of brass.
07:36Here, give me your hand.
07:39Feel that?
07:40Feels amazing doesn't it?
07:42Now this is a gift that my wife gave me
07:45just as kind of a reminder of her
07:48and our family
07:50and she gave it to me
07:51to take with me on location.
07:53It is something that I carry with me all the time
07:56and it is very, very, very important to my life.
07:59I'm so sorry that all of my essentials are a downer.
08:03I'm filled with earnest and emotion
08:06but you know the things in my life are meaningful to me.
08:10That's why I'm sharing them with you.
08:13You hear that sound?
08:18No, no, I'm not talking about an iPhone.
08:20What I am talking about is this right here.
08:24It's the fan app.
08:26I use this fan app
08:28every day of my life.
08:30I'm a big napper.
08:32I nap every day.
08:34Even when I'm working for the half hour that we have off
08:36I go straight in, I put on headphones
08:38and I listen to this app.
08:40And how I came across it was
08:42I always fell asleep to fans
08:44because of my aunt.
08:46She was an actress in the theater
08:48and it was a really busy apartment that she had
08:50with all these other actors in it
08:52so her and my uncle would sleep to a fan
08:54and I was staying with them
08:56and I got addicted to it.
08:58And I keep it at that distance, believe it or not
09:00every single day
09:02and it allows me to sleep every day.
09:04So, essential.
09:06White noise is white noise, man.
09:08It's not a fan.
09:10White noise is like the TV
09:12when the programming stopped
09:14in the 80s or 70s.
09:16A fan is like a circular motion
09:18and somehow
09:20this app
09:22mimicked that sound
09:24when it's like about
09:2618 inches from your ear
09:28and you feel, you get the sensation
09:30as if wind is actually blowing on you.
09:32You might not get it
09:34and I haven't been doing shrooms, I promise.
09:36But I get it and I absolutely love it.
09:40I didn't travel for a really long time
09:42especially for the first 10 years
09:44I was in Los Angeles
09:46and just kind of starting out as a storyteller
09:48I just studied
09:50and worked
09:52and then worked my day job
09:54and after a decade of doing that
09:56I finally gave myself permission
09:58to go out and see the world
10:00the way that I wanted to see it.
10:02These are just places that I've been
10:04represented in sand
10:06and seashells.
10:08I'll get like a little vessel in whatever country it is
10:10I'll just find a little place
10:12and then I'll put some dirt or rocks
10:14or fucking something from the experience
10:16in it.
10:18If you can see that
10:20that's sand from Namibia
10:22this is
10:24sand from the Sahara
10:26also the Sahara
10:28but from when I was 30 years old
10:30so this is like 22 years ago
10:32sand from a beach
10:34in Mozambique
10:36and this is sand from Tulum
10:38these are called mermaid dollars
10:40and they're from this little beach that I found
10:42just north of Cape Town
10:44so these things are essential
10:46only to the extent that they are
10:48representative of great experiences
10:50in my life.
10:52Thank you so much
10:54for checking out my essentials
10:56but as we learned that the essentials
10:58aren't in objects
11:00it's in the people that we spend time with
11:02and the places where we choose
11:04to go.