Walton Goggins on the good, bad of playing corrupt 'Shield' character

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Actor Walton Goggins has been envisioning ways to end "The Shield" since episode two.Now, seven seasons later, he's faced with what will happen to his troubled character, corrupt detective Shane Vendrell -- a man who has gone as far as to murder a fellow officer, among his multitude of sins."This ending," he says, referring to the series finale to air in November, "is outside my realm of imagination."It won't be easy to watch. If you watch the finale on a Tuesday night, you should plan on staying up. You won't be able to go to sleep."That's quite a statement, considering where "The Shield" has gone in its dozens of episodes. The acclaimed drama, about an inner-city police unit working underhandedly outside the system, has shown law enforcement brutalizing suspects, stealing evidence and breaking almost every law to get justice done. The show airs at 10 p.m. EDT Tuesdays on FX."The Shield" earned Michael Chiklis an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Glenn Close joined the cast for a one-season story arc. Academy Award winner Forrest Whittaker has also played a recurring character.As the series draws to a close, the main conflict remains between corrupt cop Vic Mackey (Chiklis) and bulldog Shane, fighting it out over the grayness in their morals.Goggins would not spoil the fate of Shane in the finale -- one of the most anticipated weekly-series events of this fall -- but he did hint that he could reprise the character somewhere down the road, perhaps if the series evolved into a feature film."If there were a movie called 'The Shield,' I'd say Shane would be involved some way," he says.Goggins says Shane's "moral compass went adrift" at the end of the pilot episode. But his most memorable act is certainly the murder of a fellow officer two seasons ago.That act has informed almost everything else about Shane since. "He could no longer accept who he was," Goggins says.Playing Shane "requires a lot of energy," Goggins says. He may miss the guy after playing him for the better part of a decade, but he'll also be glad to shed pieces of his darkness."It's exhausting to play him, but it's the best kind of exhaustion," he says. "I feel like a carpenter at the end of a job. I feel like I built something, and that makes me feel good."(E-mail Terry Morrow of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at morrow2(at)knews.com.)