Steven Prusakowski
Those unfamiliar with Prime Video’s Fallout may look at Walton Goggins’ The Ghoul and see the hole in his face where his nose had been. Those who watch the series, on the other hand, see The Ghoul and see one thing, the gaping hole in his chest where his heart once was.
The character lost his wife and daughter during the nuclear apocalypse that left them separated, sending him on an endless trek to find out what their fates were. Alone, haunted, unable to stop. That is only half the story of Goggins’ work in Fallout.
In addition to The Ghoul, he plays Cooper Howard, the literal poster boy for the American Dream, a cowboy used as the propaganda tool to gain support for the very group that brought about the near-global extinction. As we watch Cooper Howard and the Ghoul, there’s a duality: two versions of the same man, one told in the past and one in the present, both on a path toward a crossroads of their existences.
Goggins brings layers of humanity to both characters – two versions of one man who carries with him several lifetimes’ worth of pain. The actor joined TV Topics where he dug into not only his work on the series, but also his feelings about the career of acting. His trek started in 1987, and it wasn’t until the early 2000s with his work as Detective Shane Vendrell on The Shield (one of my all-time favorite performances) that his career started to take off, opening the door for work where many would now know him, The Righteous Gemstones, The White Lotus, Justified, and of course, Fallout… to name a few.
Goggins reflected warmly on his humble beginnings, noting how universal the struggle feels. “I started just like everybody else. Everybody else that I look up to and respect and admire. I started in 1987, you know, and like a lot of other people, I just wanted to understand what it is I was asking myself to do and get the opportunity to do it. I was also afforded the opportunity to fail, you know, over and over again, without being in a spotlight,” Goggins said, his voice carrying a sense of sincere gratitude.
That patient grind is something he sees in so many of his acting peers and he knows he is lucky for the career he has compiled. “So many of the people like Shea Wigham, like Carrie Preston, like Justin Theroux, like so many people that could sit here… this actor Drew Powell, he’s been around forever, so many people that I’ve worked with over the course of my life that have gone on their own journey,” Goggins shared with admiration for the shared paths and lifelong friendships created across decades of storytelling.
Diving into the dual roles, Goggins explained his immersive approach to playing The Ghoul, a character that requires Goggins to be hidden under layers of prosthetics. When I mentioned how his eyes let us see into the soul of a character – something I noticed I tend to focus on during performances. “I don’t think about my eyes. I don’t think about my body… I just really imagine life as this person. It’s just different for every single person I’ve had the opportunity to play. And I suppose the eyes are an extension of that ’cause that’s an extension of the soul,” Goggins said. He elaborated that whether portraying the pre-war Cooper or the ravaged Ghoul, the work always circles back to the humanity persisting beneath the surface, no matter how much the world has tried to strip it away.
One particularly moving moment stood out for the actor. “There was a moment for the Ghoul, where the Ghoul is hanging on this pole and they had written something and we kind of talked about it and we pared it down to just these words which is, you know, ‘I’m a human. You know, I’m a man. I have a family and I have a daughter,’” Goggins said. It was a pivotal reminder that even after 200 years of survival and loss, the character clings to the core of who he once was, making the performance all the more heartbreaking and resonant.
During our conversation he discussed the evolving connection between the two versions of the character, one that became much more defined during season two. “Oddly enough, man, they didn’t grow apart. They grew towards each other, you know, towards that moment in time where one became the other… in some ways they’re really trading places, aren’t they? The eternally pessimistic Ghoul has a reason to be optimistic and hope does spring eternal, whereas for Cooper, the world that he thought he knew hadn’t existed for a while,” Goggins said.
This insight touches upon the tragedy and poetry of the performance. This is not just a sci-fi tale, it is a human story where the past and present of a man constantly inform one another to create a surprisingly profound, emotional, and accessible arc.
If I am talking with Walton Goggins, then I need to talk about The Shield for at least a few. I brought up a moment so powerful that it still brings on the chills almost 20 years later. It is burned into my brain. Goggins reflected on one of television’s most gut-wrenching moments. (The Shield spoilers ahead).
“Yeah, just the other day Kenny (Johnson) reached out the other day and he just kind of sent me a photo of it. I knew exactly where I was. It was very traumatic and very upsetting. There’s no coming back, you know, Lem’s not coming back. And then they got me right where they wanted me and they called action and Kenny and I did it and it was poetry and it was painful and cathartic and all the rest of it,” Goggins said. Even years later, the way the emotional weight of that betrayal scene lingers not only for the fans, but also the actor is a testament to the raw power Goggins brought to the morally complex character.
Goggins’ thoughtful, grounded perspective on his work and career shines through in every answer. It is exactly the kind of insightful conversation that makes TV Topics the perfect destination for anyone who loves great acting and great television. It was great to have a man playing two versions of the same man on a destination join me to discuss his performance and also some of TV he loves.
Watch Walton’s amazing work on Fallout, the first two seasons are now streaming in Prime Video and also watch our entire TV Topics conversation below.
Audio version of this conversation is coming soon on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or where you find your podcasts.
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