Goode received his prized pet at age six, igniting a childhood fascination with the reptiles that morphed into full-blown obsession as he matured. “I had a room full of turtles and tortoises and snakes and lizards when I was a teenager in high school,” he says. “Eventually, girls trumped that for me for a while, but I went back to turtles and tortoises.” As explored in Monsters of God, pop culture often drives demand for exotic and endangered species. Jeremy McBride and Eric Goode of HBO’s Monsters Of God, pose for a portrait during the Getty Images Portrait Studio at SXSW 2026 on March 13, 2026 in Austin, Texas.