Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood’s characters met a tragic fate onscreen in “The White Lotus” season three, but in real life, their bond is very much alive.
That’s according to a recent joint interview the actors gave to Variety, conducted in early May. It was the first time Goggins and Wood had seen each other in person since the series’ February premiere event.
During the cast’s media blitz to promote the hit HBO show, rumors began swirling of a feud between Goggins and Wood, who played star-crossed lovers Rick and Chelsea. The pair’s costar, Jason Isaacs, repeatedly alluded to on-set drama during the season’s seven-month shoot in Thailand. Meanwhile, Goggins shut down questions about Wood, and fans noticed that he’d unfollowed her on Instagram.
Now, Goggins is setting the record straight, telling Variety, “There is no feud.”
“I adore, I love this woman madly, and she is so important to me,” Goggins said. “This is Goldie Hawn. This is Meg Ryan. She can do anything, and she will. You watch what the next 20 years of her experience will be. I’ll be on an island, I think Greece. But she’s special. There is no feud. She is love and I know that I am that to her. We care about each other very deeply.”
Goggins also explained why he unfollowed Wood, saying the move was not a slight against his costar but rather part of his efforts to move on from the project.
“I knew what we had gone through, and I knew how close that we had gotten, and I needed to begin to process saying goodbye to Rick and Chelsea,” Goggins said. “And I knew that that was going to take a while for me, so I let her know, this is what I’ve gotta do. And she was extremely supportive about that.”
“I haven’t spoken to anyone,” he continued, referring to his “White Lotus” costars. “I couldn’t handle it. Judge me or don’t. I don’t give a fuck what you think. This is my process. Rick means everything to me, and Chelsea means everything to me. And so that’s what I needed to do for me to process all of this.”
For her part, Wood said the outsized reaction to Goggins’ unfollow — both from fans of the show and entertainment journalists — is a negative reflection of our cultural priorities. In fact, she said she considered setting the record straight, but feared the narrative had already spun out of control.
“Why is everyone obsessing over Instagram? That is irrelevant. We don’t give a shite about Instagram,” Wood said.
During the interview, Goggins opened Instagram and re-followed Wood.
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