EXCLUSIVE Interview! Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins on Prime Video's Fallout | Not Just Bollywood (2024)

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Actors Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins their new show Fallout, the video game it is based on. Fallout is a story about the end of the world but it is also about the beginning of many new ones. In a candid conversation with Firstpost’s Lachmi Deb Roy for her column Not Just Bollywood, the actors talk about the show and their connection with the gaming universe.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Aaron and Walton, what was the preparation for the role like?

Aaron: While I was doing research I referred to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. And was influenced by the character of Cassius. The character of Cassius is described as having ambition, like a hungry dog. The character was like, there was always this want and need for something that he’s lacking and he had this hungry look. It’s what he’s starving for. So, I had to work on that

Walton:I read the script 250 times and that’s a lot of reading. You do the math. So it’s always in my head. It’s always in my imagination. So I watched a lot of movies, took a long time to put this makeup on every day. And I watched a lot of Westerns, trying to understand, okay, well, this is a good comparison for the goal or a good comparison for Cooper Howard. And in addition to that, I think like so many other people in our business, I just went through and made a playlist, you know, of maybe 50, 60, 70 songs that is just always kind of on in the background. It’s almost like hearing a novel or something like that for the person that you’re playing.

Another thing I want to ask is about the makeup, it was like crafting the look for the role. What was the process like? How much time did you take for the makeup or rather the makeover?

Walton:Well, we took five months to come up with it, you know, even though they had, they had pictures of it. They had pictures of them, a goal from, from the game. But that was only a starting off point. And I, and I think that may have been kind of the extreme version of it. And that certainly was a part of the conversation early on, but then we quickly kind of all agreed that we wanted it to still feel like me so that I was still in there. And we tried contact lenses. Thank God, that didn’t work because that was extremely claustrophobic for me. And when we put them in, all of a sudden, he becomes unrelatable, right? It’s you, you need his eyes. The eyes are indeedthe windows to the soul. After trying three different iterations of it, we were zeroing in on it. And the last one seemed to really fit the bill. And that’s really what’s, what’s in the show now.

And you played two characters inFalloutone before, one after the apocalypse. So what were the challenges to do these two?

Walton:To really understand who Cooper Howard was. I think for me, anyway, you have to understand how rich and full a person’s life is to understand what they’ve ultimately lost. I guess only, even though I don’t really believe in making a lot of choices as an actor, I believe you prepare yourself to set the stage for magic to happen. And that’s the alchemy that storytellers really talk about. But there needed to be a connection between these two people right over 200 years, despite how very different their life experiences are. And I was able to kind of find that with a sense of humor. And a certain swagger and I suppose on some level, a charisma, you know that an actor would have of his stature, and though he’s a B movie star, not an A-list movie star. So things of that nature. I spent a lot of time thinking about that.

And for you, Aaron, did you play the game to understand what the world looked like?

I didn’t play the game to do that, but I did, you know, find myself watching other people play, now online, YouTube, and Twitch and you know watching especially season players, you know, people who really know what they’re doing. It didn’t have to be a discovery to me.

The scripts to me were a surprise. I didn’t know the tone of Fallout. After reading the script I felt surprised how this comedy aligned so well with this post-apocalyptic, political satire. My challenge was where did this come from? So I wanted to get right into the world.

Walton, were you familiar with the Fallout universe before the film?

I and not a gamer, my son is a gamer. I’m not a gamer. And so I’d heard the name Fallout, but I was not familiar with the world at all. And I’m happy that I wasn’t, and I haven’t played the game, and I have the blessing of Todd Howard, the man who came up with the game.

Lachmi Deb Roy is the entertainment editor of Firtspost, Network18. She reviews films and series with a gender lens. Her interviews are called 'Not Just Bollywood' because she takes huge interest in world cinema. OTT over theatrical releases is her preference unless and until its a King Khan film. She takes interest in fashion, food and art reviews too.see more

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