Fallout: Walton Goggins’ Ghoul ‘Will Do Anything In Order To Survive’ – Exclusive Image

Part of the joy of playing Fallout is seeing what sort of character you’ll run into next – you never know if it’ll be a happy-go-lucky townsperson collecting their sarsaparilla bottle caps, a monstrously irradiated warlord ready to take you down with a moment’s notice, or literally anything in between. In a similar vein, the Fallout streaming series on Prime Video – from Westworld’s Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy – will keep viewers on their toes as it launches viewers into the post-apocalyptic Wasteland. Among the central figures in the show is Walton Goggins as The Ghoul – a character who could either be friend or foe, depending on the moment.

Once upon a time, The Ghoul was a cheery actor named Cooper Howard. Now, 200 years later, he’s a nose-less bounty hunter with his own moral code for living in the post-nuclear world. “I want to survive and I will do anything in order to survive,” Goggins tells Empire of the character, created specifically for the show. But underneath his freaky exterior, expect to see glimpses of the man The Ghoul used to be. “You have to understand the world that he was living in beforehand to really contemplate the horrors that he’s seen over the last 200 years and why he’s still alive,” Goggins explains. “Why doesn’t he just succumb to becoming a [feral] ghoul or put a bullet in his head?”

With wisecracks that lean into Goggins’ sardonic sense of humour, expect a character who’ll surprise you every time he’s on screen. “I’ve been given the opportunity to play morally ambiguous characters for a long time,” he says. “I can be funny to some people and maybe engender some pathos for horrible people. That’s what I like to think. Or maybe it’s because Sam Rockwell was unavailable.” Bring on the apocalypse.

Read Empire’s full Walton Goggins interview on Fallout in The Acolyte issue – on sale Thursday 11 April. Order a copy online here. Fallout streams on Prime Video from 10 April.