'Sons of Anarchy' will welcome back Walton Goggins' Venus Van Dam

Sons of Anarchy fans are nervous heading into the show’s final season, but here’s something good to look forward to: Walton Goggins will return as transgender escort Venus Van Dam. Creator Kurt Sutter confirmed it on Twitter (in NSFW language that properly conveys his own excitement).

Goggins, who could earn a guest performer Emmy nomination June 10 for the character’s emotional return in season six, had been vocal about wanting to play the role again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you see her again before this show is done. I’ll just say that,” he told EW last October. “She’s like a drug for me. And I think she’s like a drug for Kurt. Kurt and his writing staff did such a good job of creating this woman who is as strong as they come and now simultaneously as vulnerable as they come. I just… I miss her. I missed her the day that we wrapped, and I miss her now. I hope to be six inches taller than some of the members of the gang on Sons of Anarchy again, but we’ll see.”

In season six, Venus asked the club for help in saving her son from her child-porn-producer mother and got closer to Tig (Kim Coates). Goggins’ first appearance in season five—when Venus posed for photos that helped the club blackmail someone—was a complete surprise to the audience. The secret guest spot was originally born out of Sutter’s insistence that Goggins could never guest on Sons because FX viewers would too closely associate him with his role on The Shield. Goggins told Sutter he’d like to play a transgender character, and roughly a year-and-a-half later, inspiration struck.

“He texted me while I was filming [Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained] down in New Orleans, and he said, ‘Were you serious?’ I said, ‘About what?’ He said, ‘Are you going to play Venus Van Dam?’ I said, ‘Have you written it?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Send me the pages,'” Goggins told EW. “And I just fell in love with her immediately. It was really important to both of us that we really go there, we make her a three-dimensional person with feelings. Sassy, sweet, smart, and beautiful.”