Maxance Vincent
Aaron Moten, who portrays Maximus in Prime Video’s Fallout, wasn’t at all familiar with the world of the Bethesda video game of the same name, as he explains to Awards Radar during a Zoom interview. However, since the franchise has such a massive, broad appeal amongst gamers, what he found online was incredibly helpful in helping him understand The Brotherhood of Steel and Maximus’ place within it:
“Thankfully, the franchise is such a massive success that there’s so much online in terms of information and lore. The Brotherhood of Steel would have been my biggest deep dive, and I needed to understand this worshipped religion. I needed to find out what life would be like for people. For myself, preparation always begins with the perspective. It’s how your character sees the world through their eyes. I think many bad habits creep up whenever you’re starting to prepare, and you have to avoid them. As soon as you have an idea of something, you want to nail it down or try it out. But you want to savor everything and view the world differently as you prepare to do it.”
In the series, Maximus teams up with Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) and develops a fond chemistry with her. In building this relationship with Ella in the series, Moten explains that there’s a certain realism to his enjoyment of working with her, which he states does not happen often in his experience in the industry:
“You don’t always get this when you show up to work with other actors. Often, you can respect them in their work, especially all the things they’ve done before. But I found I was always excited to problem-solve with her. As soon as you have a script, you have nothing but problems [laughs]. That’s what the filmmaking process is: building a lot of that relationship with her together on the day. We often do work alone and bring it all to set so that we can piece it together. It was such a joyous experience, and it’s rare. I know enough in my fifteen years of professional experience that it’s rare to find a relationship like that in the workplace, and it is special. I’m glad it’s translating into a chemistry people have enjoyed.”
This close relationship allowed the two to approach several scenes differently, including the one where Maximus fully reveals himself to Lucy right after she states he is the best stranger she’d ever met in episode six:
“Every time we walk on set, we play things in so many different ways, which is a part of my excitement for showing up to set to work with her. We can always start in one place and go to a completely different one. We started in a place that might have felt more tropey if it had been put into our final cut. With film, you want to work economically, and you want to make sure that you get the take. From that point on, we wanted to break it down and push it away from that because I think our writers, Graham and Geneva, do such an incredible job of subverting expectations. Many people want to immediately draw parallels to other video game adaptations with Fallout because it is a video game adaptation, but they’re reacting to everything they’ve seen. It’s the way I feel as an actor as well, through everything I’ve seen. It’s why I’m always on Criterion. The more I can intake, the more I have to respond to and make war against the more tropey ideas, things that can get overdone and pushed, which we always try to avoid with this show.
Why would he continue to lie to her when he has true feelings for her? Given that he comes forward and clean, why would Lucy, in return, not still have the experience they’ve had together? Actually, this guy saved my life on that bridge. He seems like a good person, maybe the best person I have met! It really lends itself to that, and we feel like we’re making something new.”
During our audio conversation, seen below, we also discussed how Maximus’ moral compass changes after letting Knight Titus (Michael Rapaport) die in the second episode, his discussions with showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner on the evolution of his arc, Maximus’ transformation after experiencing the Vault life, and if the character will ever be the same again after the show’s finale. Be warned that MAJOR SPOILERS are ahead for those who have not seen the show (you should, by the way. It’s amazing.)
You can listen to my full interview with Aaron below and stream all episodes of Fallout on Prime Video today:
[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]
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