At this point in Season 3 of "White Lotos", a series of Mike White's global anthology, which takes place in Thailand this time around (after previous records set in Hawaii and Italy), it is difficult to imagine anyone, but Walton Gogins playing the irreplaceable Rick. Gogins, who currently draws HBO's double duty with his role in the "righteous gems" (performance that is actually even more daring and funny than what he does on the "white lotus"), is Perfect Like Rick, a man who comes to Thailand with his girlfriend with much younger Chelsea (spectacular Aime Lou Wood, who you may know from "sex education") and seems to be hellish to take revenge on his father. It's all very Inigo Montoya-Codeno, and Gogins pulls it well, so you May Be surprised when you found out that Woody Harrelson had to play Rick - and even sign the project before it turned out.

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In a massive cover story about Hollywood reporter For the third season of White's award -winning show, producers David Bernad and Casting Director Meredith Tucker said Harrelson was originally a choice for Rick, but they indirectly did so, saying the whole project is working under a specific financial model. "Everyone is treated the same on the" white lotus, "Bernad said. "They are paid the same, and we make an alphabetical recovery, so you get people who want to make the project for real reasons (...) it's a system we have developed in the first season because there was no money to make the show."

"It makes it much easier," Tucker added. "You tell people this is what it is. And some won't do it - and honestly, you can't hold it against the people who have to make a living. Our regular series is a lot that do this for a scale." So where does Harrelson enter? Obviously, he wanted to negotiate a salary to play Rick and was told not; He finally Whether I agree to take the part anyway, but it ended up dropping due to an appointment conflict.

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Enter the Goggins, and the rest is history.

Walton Gogins clearly ended up playing Rick, but as Goggins TR told Almost He approached White to appear in the second season ... but he woke up to the question of his agent that he did not like much. "When Mike (White) casts season 2, my agents asked me if I would write a letter and I said no. I am not such a man," Gogins recalls before saying it, based on how casting Whether Cut for the season set in Sicily, he is glad he did not make the question. "If it was the right time to work with any director, it would not be because I brought them. So I didn't write that letter for Season 2, fortunately for me, because the answer would have been absolutely no, it would definitely be Michael Impurse, not me in Sicily."

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Gogins is especially remarkable as a rick, a man whose own and often kind of intermediate external houses and the two deep insecurities and Surprisingly strong attachment to Chelsea, despite his frequent admiration with her. But, according to him, he had a kind of rough walking during the recording because of his intense work with character. "At times, I felt misunderstood, as I was dating everyone else," Gogins admitted. "I was just wasting the story. I came to a place where they would just put my chair somewhere different or sat on a rock of all and wait for weekends to socialize with people."

Fortunately, Aime Lou Wood was able to break down Gogins' barriers. "But I and I became very close, very fast, and part of it was because when everyone else was like," Oh, just leave that man alone, "Aime was constantly coming and oked," he said.

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Similar to her character, Aime Lu Wood simply used her natural charm to conquer Walton Gogins, and as she said in the Trail profile, she was entitled to the heart of matter. "She would be like, 'Oh, you're not a frightening man. You're af *** Teddy bear is what you are," Gogins said. "And she was right. But it was also part of the experience I needed." (Wood followed, saying that Gogins would thank her for calling on his bluff: "Because he would be like a lonely wolf, but he really didn't want it, in the same way that Rick didn't really want it.")

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It wasn't just a tree that made Gogins get out of his protected cocoon, though; Guest Starwarr Sam Rockwell arrives in the fifth episode of the show, "Fun Fun" Like Frank, Rick's old friend who agrees to meet him in Bangkok. "In the end you see Rick in his surroundings, with his friend, who (played by) Sam Rockwell, who is also one of my best friends," Gogins said of his true decade -long friendship with Rockwell. "And this very tacit man in all this pain suddenly enjoys himself, and I waited for a long time to have that. I waited for a long time to be around the people I could connect to this experience because it was Rick's experience. I had it as soon as I was walking through the door."

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Rockwell's surprise in "White Lotos" is partly due to his 18 -year -old real -life partner, Leslie Bib, who starred in the show as Kate. Obviously, even she knew that Rockwell's presence would help Gogins. "I knew with Walton how comprehensive and painful," she said. "I also knew Sammy would be an oxygen mask for him."

The fact that both Wood and Rockwell helped Gogins feel more comfortable on the "White Lotos" set is weird ... And hopefully, all their characters survive the final of the season 3.