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Walton Goggins had never played Fallout before he was cast in the TV adaptation – and didn't want to even after the fact.
"I never played the game. So when this kind of came my way, I didn't want to play it 'cause I didn't want to be influenced by whatever version of the Ghoul is in the games. I also knew that what Jonathan and Graham and Geneva, our writers, what they were attempting to do," Goggins tells GamesRadar+. "What they were asked to do was not to recreate a season or an issue, I suppose of Fallout the game, but to introduce a new story that would fit seamlessly into the canon that is Fallout."
Goggins plays Cooper Howard aka The Ghoul, a mutated bounty hunter who styles himself as a cowboy (and is impossibly cool) in Prime Video's TV adaptation. In the video game franchise, ghouls are a race of posthuman beings who have been severely disfigured due to irradiation – with some living alongside the general population and others becoming completely and totally feral and terrifying.
"I had the license to take it really wherever I wanted to," Goggins continues. "They had written, I had read two scripts when we started, and they were so thoughtful and so well written and so complex and human. And I, it was really kind of all there for me. You know, it was all on the page. It was just a matter of putting those prosthetics on, getting the clothes on and just figuring out practically how to pull it off. "
Helmed by Westworld co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Fallout sees a young Vault Dweller named Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) journey to the surface for the very first time in order to save her kidnapped father (Kyle MacLachlan). When Lucy comes to face to face with The Ghoul, total chaos ensues.
Fallout hits Prime Video on April 11. For more, check out the rest of our coverage:
- Fallout TV show
- Fallout TV show stars and creators on working with Todd Howard: "It means a lot to get his approval"
- The Fallout TV show went the extra mile – by creating a real-life Pip-Boy for its cast to use
- Fallout cast watched Twitch and YouTube streams of the games before filming: "Watching people play was vital"
- Kyle MacLachlan immediately sells us on Fallout – by comparing it to two of his greatest works: Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet
- Fallout release schedule
- Fallout season 1 review: "A big Vault Boy-style thumbs up"
- Is the Fallout TV show canon? Here’s what Bethesda’s Todd Howard and the showrunners have to say
- Fallout season 1 ending explained: Hank, Bud’s Buds, and *that* finale location
- When does the Fallout TV show take place on the series timeline?
- Will there be a Fallout season 2?
- All of the Fallout Easter eggs we spotted in the TV show
- Fallout’s finale may have just answered the centuries-old mystery behind who started the nuclear apocalypse
- The Fallout TV show just revealed the canon origins of Vault Boy's signature thumbs up
- Fallout season 2 sets up [SPOILER] as a major season 2 location
