How Walton Goggins Became Fallout's Hideous Ghoul
Ever been so hot you sweated out of your eye sockets? Probably not — but Walton Goggins has, and it's all thanks to his star turn in Amazon's Fallout series.
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00:00Ever been so hot you sweated out of your eye sockets?
00:03Probably not, but Walton Goggins has, and it's all thanks to his star turn in Amazon's
00:07Fallout series.
00:09Various types of ghouls exist in the Fallout video games.
00:12They're all irradiated humans that populate the post-nuclear wasteland, but some have
00:16become rabid, while others have retained their humanity, even as their bodies endure radiation-induced
00:22decay.
00:23These noseless beings can be encountered simply by roaming the wasteland, accosting players
00:27and attempting to devour their flesh for sustenance.
00:29But the non-rabid ghouls are also found in many of the game's makeshift cities, providing
00:33help and offering side quests for players.
00:36The Prime video series features examples of both kinds of ghoul.
00:39In Goggins' character's case, not only did the show creators decide to keep the ghoul
00:43character hot, but they also ensured that he retained his memories and humanity, despite
00:47being 200 years old.
00:49The result is a character who is neither good nor evil.
00:52Well, now that is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs.
01:00The ghoul occupies one of the many grey areas thrown up by the series' post-apocalyptic
01:04setting, demonstrating a ruthless and calculating side while also revealing himself to be a
01:08product of tragedy.
01:09The ghoul's former pre-nuclear persona was that of Cooper Howard, a western movie star
01:14whose wife Barb was a Vault-Tec employee.
01:16The opening scene of the series depicts Howard and his daughter Janie witnessing the first
01:20bombs drop on Los Angeles before escaping on horseback.
01:24But the version of Howard we meet some 200 years later is a much different man.
01:28Exhumed from the ground by a trio of bounty hunters, Howard is revealed to have become
01:32the ghoul, a decaying, ruthless, and intelligent gunslinger.
01:35Creating the look to accompany that persona proved to be a complex and involved process.
01:40In a Vanity Fair piece published before the debut of Fallout, executive producer and director
01:45Jonathan Nolan explained how creating Walton Goggins' ghoul look was something of a balancing
01:49act.
01:50He said,
01:51You have to be extremely careful with it when you're putting a full appliance on someone's
01:54face because you hired that actor for a reason.
01:56Their face is their instrument.
01:58You want the tiny little expressions and changes that they make.
02:01That was a significant challenge for prosthetics designer Vincent Van Dyke, who was tasked
02:05with creating a visually striking look for the ghoul that still allowed Goggins to project
02:09his performance.
02:10Once Van Dyke had planned the look of the prosthetics, it was up to Jacob Garber, makeup
02:14artist and head of the prosthetic department, to apply the pieces and finalize the ghoul's
02:18on-screen appearance.
02:19That process was nothing short of grueling, if Goggins' recollection has anything to
02:23go by.
02:24Speaking at the Deadline Contenders television panel, the actor characterized the whole experience
02:28of becoming the ghoul as extremely anxiety-provoking, with the initial makeup tests becoming five-hour
02:33marathon sessions.
02:34The actor said he hadn't thought about just how long it would end up taking, adding,
02:37I don't know what I would have done, what my reaction would have been to how long it
02:41was going to take.
02:42While the initial tests weren't just about applying the prosthetics either, there were
02:46still conversations to be had about various elements of the ghoul's appearance, and even
02:50after the look was finalized, there was more trouble to come for Goggins.
02:54The initial makeup tests weren't the only challenging part of creating the ghoul's look.
02:58Once Jacob Garber had applied the prosthetics to Walton Goggins, there was still much more
03:02to be decided, as the actor explained at the Deadline panel.
03:05I was ad nauseum about how we wanted this to look and how I could communicate with the
03:11audience.
03:12At one point, the crew suggested giving Goggins eye contacts, but quickly discovered that
03:16they made him look much too human.
03:18Eventually, though, they landed on the right look.
03:20By the time we were ready to go, Geneva and Graham came over, we all looked at it one
03:24last time and said, okay, this is what we're going to go with.
03:27That wasn't the end of it, of course.
03:29Even after finalizing the look of the ghoul, Goggins actually had to perform, which turned
03:33out to be trickier than he'd assumed.
03:35The actor explained that when he arrived for the first day of shooting in New York, the
03:38temperature was 106 degrees.
03:41This posed an immediate problem.
03:43And I immediately sat down on a log and said, oh my God, I'm getting too old for this s**t.
03:48The heat had caused the actor to sweat so much, in fact, that it started pouring out
03:51of his eyes.
03:53Director Jonathan Nolan recalled that moment in his Vanity Fair interview, telling the
03:56outlet,
03:57The first day we were shooting with Walton in makeup, he comes to set and I'm looking
04:00at him like, Walton, are you crying?
04:02He just had sweat leaking out of the prosthetics under his eyes because it was so hot.
04:06With the heat, Goggins also had to overcome another challenge, not being able to talk.
04:12Having endured a laborious process to finalize the prosthetics, then being caught off guard
04:16by the heat during the first day of filming, Walton Goggins finally discovered that he
04:19was unable to actually talk while in costume.
04:22As the actor explained during the deadline panel, he lost the ability to speak when he
04:26put in the retainers designed to get the ghoul his yellowed and degraded teeth.
04:29However, after some trial and error, Goggins managed to overcome this issue.
04:33He explained that by the end of filming, he had mastered the art of delivering lines
04:37through his retainers.
04:38Better yet, he and the team also reduced the makeup process to around two hours each day.
04:43Throughout the production of Fallout, it seems Goggins had some significant input into not
04:47just his character's look, but the show in general.
04:49The actor revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers that he wanted audiences to lean into
04:53the look of the ghoul.
04:54I said, could you do Chris Christopherson if he were 250 years old and had been walking
05:01the wasteland and had been drinking all night?
05:04Without Goggins, it's likely that Fallout might have been a significantly different
05:07show, which only comments to the actor's reputation as consistently the best thing
05:12about the TV shows he appears in.