Walton Goggins reflects on a reality check he received while filming The Shield after being scolded by a police officer. Aired on FX from 2002 to 2008, the crime drama follows the morally ambiguous and often corrupt detectives who make up an experimental division within the Los Angeles Police Department. Other than Goggins as Detective Shane Vendrell, a loyal yet reckless member of the unit, The Shield cast includes Michael Chiklis, Catherine Dent, Michael Jace, Jay Karnes, Benito Martinez, and CCH Pounder.

In a GQ video in which he broke down his most iconic characters, Goggins reflected on the time he received a reality check after being scolded by a police officer while filming The Shield. Watch the portion of the video below:

Goggins recalled that, on the first day of filming The Shield in downtown Los Angeles, a real police officer on set reprimanded the cast for openly displaying their prop badges since there was a hit out on a police officer at the time. The moment acted as a reality check for Goggins and made him realize how serious the show was. Read his full comments below:

And I’ll never forget the first day of filming, downtown Los Angeles, I’m a serious guy. I like to think I’m a funny guy too, but I’m a pretty earnest, serious guy, and I take what we do for a living very seriously. But we were messing around, downtown LA, and we had our badges on, and we were just bonding, like that first day of work, and the badge was out, and this police officer who was security on the set, came up to us. He said, “What the fuck are you doing?” I said, “I’m sorry, what do you mean, ‘What are you doing?’ “You see that badge, it’s not a joke. There’s a hit out on a police officer right now, take that fucking thing off and put it in your pocket until they call action.” And it was in that moment that I realized this is for real. You know, that’s the culture of this show, it’s the tenor of this city, and that’s how we’re gonna approach this.

The Shield Is A Serious Show

Goggins’ Scolding Highlighted The Seriousness Of Their Work

Goggins’ scolding by the real police officer highlighted the gravity and realism that The Shield aimed to capture, and thereby shaped the approach and culture of the production. From its inception, The Shield was inspired by the gritty realism of shows like Homicide: Life on the Street and NYPD Blue. When writing the pilot script, creator and showrunner Shawn Ryan took inspiration from the real-life Rampart Division police scandal, on which The Shield‘s Strike Team is loosely based.

Though The Shield is set in the fictional Farmington district, the show still depicts its setting of Los Angeles with stark authenticity. The series captures the city’s diverse neighborhoods, gang-related crime, and constant tension between criminals and police, which in turn, highlights the dangers and seriousness of police work. Goggins’ early encounter with the real police officer in Los Angeles made him realize how they needed to approach the show’s depiction of law enforcement with the same gravity and realism reflected in the actual risks on the streets.

This gravity and gritty realism is one of the main reasons why The Shield is so acclaimed and has such lasting value. It’s widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time, receiving six Emmy nominations throughout its run, though its only win was Chiklis for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Though the tone of the series may have already been shaped by the time Goggins was scolded by the police officer, it certainly helped highlight the gravity and seriousness of their work on The Shield.

Source: GQ