When I think of Walton Goggins and Fallout, I think of the Ghoul. The Ghoul’s intense makeup is unforgettable, and Goggins’ charisma is off the charts. So, when I watch the series with my Amazon Prime subscription, that’s primarily what I’m thinking about when his character is on screen. However, he has some seriously emotional moments too, and the actor revealed the scene from his character’s arc that left him crying his eyes out.
The first time we see Walton Goggins in Fallout, he’s not The Ghoul yet. He’s simply Cooper Howard, a father who is performing at a birthday party with his daughter. Then, we see explosions go off, and the next time we see the character, 219 years later, he’s a hardened apocalypse outlaw. It turns out that the first scene made a real emotional impact on the man playing this complex character, and he told Vanity Fair why it left him “bawling,” beginning his thoughts with:
It’s one of my favorite moments was this idea of a mushroom cloud being hidden behind your thumb. When I read the script for the first time, I knew that obviously this is the moment where you’re in this world, but the world is going to permanently change in about eight seconds.
In the scene, Cooper and his daughter are wearing matching cowboy outfits at a kids’ birthday party where everyone is trying to forget the impending end of the world. Then, when his kid sees the bomb go off, and measures it with her thumb, like he told her to, the inevitable literally and figuratively hits them all.
The White Lotus actor found the emotion in that moment by thinking about his own son and how he’d feel if it really happened, explaining:
The thing that I carried with me into this experience is the fact that I am a parent. I have a 14-year-old. I’ll never forget the feeling that I had, and in my imagination — imagining these bombs dropping and really thinking about my own child and doing what any parent would do, and that is get them to safety.
Without thinking about the kids, that scene in Fallout is heavy. However, adding in the fact that this happened as Cooper and his daughter were working a party makes it even more solemn and tragic.
Goggins also noted that this scene is how the audience is introduced to the world of Fallout, and this is our introduction to the destruction, making matters even sadder, as he said:
[Jonathan] Nolan and the writers gave Cooper Howard the opportunity to be an avatar for all of society because it’s only through his eyes, through his experience, that you witness the dropping of the bombs.
I remember watching this scene for the first time and being stunned by the juxtaposition of everyone living a normal life and the bomb going off minutes later. Then, thinking about how a parent would react to a situation like this makes me even more emotional.
It turns out, Walton Goggins felt the exact same when he watched this scene for the first time, as he explained:
What a magical day. It was a day that I’ll never forget to live in my imagination and feel the ending of the world that way, and the love that you have for your child. I watched this for the first time with two people, and I didn’t anticipate — I was just bawling watching it.
I totally get why this made him bawl. It’s the moment his character’s life changes forever, for real, and the fact that his kid was involved adds even more emotion to it.
Now, I’m curious to see what kind of moments we get in Fallout Season 2 that will evoke this kind of emotion. Goggins has said Season 2 “blows” Season 1 out of the water, so my expectations are high, and I can’t wait to dive deeper into all the implications – and specifically the very personal ones – of this world-ending event.
Thankfully, we won’t have to wait much longer for moments like this either, because Fallout has wrapped Season 2, and it’s set to premiere on the 2025 TV schedule in December. So, get ready, folks, because I have a feeling we’re in for more action and moments that make us cry as we travel to New Vegas.