PRIME VIDEO’S NEW post-apocalyptic sci-fi series Fallout, adapted from the seminal video-game franchise, sees among its various species a population of former humans, warped by radiation from a devastating nuclear war. They are known as ‘ghouls’, and Walton Goggins plays ‘The Ghoul’: a gnarly, noseless, wisecracking cowboy who has managed to remain highly functional and more human-like in nature while others of his kind have become feral. “I’ve been given the opportunity to play morally ambiguous characters for a long time,” the actor, who’s left his murky mark on shows like Justified and The Shield, tells Empire cheerfully. “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.”
The Ghoul —once a gentle-natured Hollywood actor called Cooper Howard — makes a living as a bounty-hunter, and in true cowboy style abides by his own moral code. “I want to survive and I will do anything in order to survive,” says Goggins of the character. In the show, his vocation leads him to kidnap Lucy (Ella Purnell), who hails from an underground civilisation of vault-dwellers established by the wealthy while the war ravaged the Earth’s surface (and the less fortunate humans who remained above ground). Their differences bring out The Ghoul’s saltier side, although as the series progresses and more of Cooper’s past life comes into the story, the lines between antagonist and protagonist blur. “The Ghoul is funny as shit, but he’s masking a lot of pain,” Goggins explains. In the world of Fallout, ghoul waters run deep.