Fallout Star Discusses the Ghoul’s Lengthy Prosthetics Process: ‘I Was Really Insecure’

Summary

• Walton Goggins reveals the challenging process of becoming The Ghoul, with intricate prosthetics and claustrophobia struggles.
• The actor worried about emotive expression being hindered by prosthetics but relied on producer’s reassurance.
• Goggins shares feeling strange without Ghoul prosthetics, despite getting to show his natural face in some scenes.

Fallout star, Walton Goggins, has divulged his true feelings about playing The Ghoul in Prime Video’s hit sci-fi series. Set 200 years after a nuclear war decimated the world, The Ghoul, as his name might suggest, has been mutated by the radiation, peeling off his skin and nose, and drastically prolonging his life span. Goggins delivers a scene-stealing performance in the series (based on the video game franchise currently owned by Bethesda Softworks), but the process of becoming The Ghoul wasn’t as fun as actually playing him.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Walton Goggins discussed the process of becoming The Ghoul. The prosthetics for Goggins’ skinless bounty hunter was a 2 hour, 15 minute long task, and involved nine distinct stages. During the interview, Goggins broke down the process, step-by-step, and discussed his mindset during each moment. The process included gluing prosthetics to the bottom of the actor’s eyes and inside his lips. The actor revealed that his claustrophobia nearly became a problem during the prosthetics process. Goggins said:

“I didn’t develop any tools to cope with it, to be quite honest with you. I’m claustrophobic by nature, and became a scuba diver in order to deal with that.”

Early on in shooting, Walton Goggins was also worried that the prosthetics would dampen his emotive expressions, ultimately ruining the performance. The actor recalled continuously checking with Jonathan Nolan (executive producer of the show), to make sure everything he was doing could be properly picked up on camera. Goggins continued:

“Something that was thicker than what we came up with would have been very difficult to convey, really – other than some wild gestures – what was going on inside the head of The Ghoul. I don’t want to think about that whenever we’re working. First couple of days, I was really insecure of being expressionless. After every take I would look at Jonah, and I would say ‘Is any of this working?’ and he kept saying ‘You’re fine. I see it all. I see everything buddy. Just do your thing.'”

Walton Goggins Felt Strange On-Set Without His Prosthetics

While Walton Goggins spends the majority of Fallout‘s 8 episodes as The Ghoul, he does get the opportunity to show his natural face in some scenes. Goggins opens the show, appearing as his pre-nuclear Armageddon character, Cooper Howard, on the day the bombs dropped. You’d think after months of shooting with your eyes and lips held in place by prosthetics, Goggins would be glad to act with his actual face, but the actor revealed that it was something of a shock to walk around set without The Ghoul’s face atop his own. Goggins said:

“The thing I was most surprised about was the first day I played Cooper Howard. I was only in the chair for five minutes, but when I walked out, all of a sudden I felt like I didn’t have my superhero costume on.”

Season 2 of Fallout has officially been renewed and is currently in development. While no release date ro window has been announced yet, Prime Video have assured audiences that Season 2 will not take as long as the debut season, and that fans won’t be waiting too long for the show to return.

Fallout
is available to stream on Prime Video.