Walton Goggins in Fallout: “I didn't play without a nose!”

The Ghoul interpreter tells us how he put himself in the shoes of the irradiated bounty hunter… and without a nose.

Who else but him to play the Gunslinger of fallout ? Walton Goggins is one of the most famous triggers of the big and small screen since The Shield (2002). Cowboy at Tarantino in Django Unchained (2015) and The Bastard Eight (2015), he also drew his revolver in Justified (2010) and it is therefore logically up to him to Jonathan Nolan thought to embody the Ghoul, bloodthirsty bounty hunter of fallout, antihero of the post-apocalyptic western which has just been released on Prime Video. Encounter.

FIRST: You had played the video game fallout before saying yes to the series?
Walton Goggins : The truth ? Never ! Not even once ! And besides, when I was offered the role, I told myself that I really shouldn't play it! So that we have an outside perspective on the team, a critical perspective on the series and not necessarily from the point of view of the game. Jonathan (Nolan) and the others were already big players, so my contribution was not to to be a player.

How were you introduced to the role of “Ghoul”?
He is a character who has been wandering this desolate land for 200 years. He is a brutal and pragmatic bounty hunter. With a very spicy sense of humor. But before he was this creature, he was Cooper Howard. He is the bridge between the world before and the post-apo world of fallout. I'm not playing a TV version of a “Ghoul” present in the games. I play a person who has lived in this irradiated landscape for two centuries. Someone with motivations and who has experienced a lot of suffering…

The “Ghoul” is a real gunslinger, who shoots like a cowboy. This is the kind of role you are good at…
Yes, there is a whole western part integrated into the story of fallout and which is directly linked to my character! And it’s a genre that I’m very familiar with (laughs). I've had the chance to make quite a few great westerns in my career, whether with Tarantino (Django Unchained And Tea Hateful Eight) or even Justified. So today, playing the trigger maniac is like second nature to me!

What was it like playing without a nose?
Obviously, they didn't actually cut it for me (laughs). But I was playing with marking small white dots on the nose (for post-production). Afterwards, I didn't play the character imagining that he didn't have a nose! I didn't speak with a weird voice or research people without noses (laughs)! Because it didn't have to be grotesque. The idea was not to disgust the public but to make the “Ghoul” almost sexy, it has a certain swag… You have to keep in mind that the makeup took 5 hours to do originally. Fortunately, Jake Garber (FX specialist) found solutions to do this in 1 hour 45 minutes. So every morning on set, I spent 1h45 in an armchair… I was able to watch lots of films! (laughs)

When you're an actor, is it complicated to convey emotions with so many prosthetics and makeup on your face?
I wasn't very comfortable at first… The technical team designed everything as finely as possible, so that we could discern the movements of my face. Now, I'm not an actor who is visually aware of his facial expressions. When I transmit emotions, it mostly comes from within. So there it was even more complicated. I didn't know at all if I was able to convey anything and often I turned to Jonathan (Nolan) to ask him if I needed to do more, to accentuate my gimmicks so that give something back. And he reassured me.

Fallout, season 1, watch on Prime Video.