“No, I haven’t sat down to play the games,” said Walton Goggins, who plays pre-war movie star Cooper Howard and his post-war counterpart The Ghoul. “And I won’t. I won’t. I won’t play the games. I’m not interested.”
The reason is actually pretty simple: Goggins doesn’t want to think of the world or the characters of Fallout as elements of a game.
“All of a sudden, I’m looking at this world from a very different perspective, and as something on a screen in which I am an avatar in. I don’t believe that I’m an avatar. I believe The Ghoul exists in the world. I believe that Cooper Howard exists in the world.” he said.
“The best way that I can serve this world and serve the fans of this game, I think, is to go to work every single day and believe the circumstances that I’m presented with,” Goggins said.
Makes sense to me. The Ghoul is an original character, and Goggins doesn’t need to know a lot about the setting or source material.
Yeah I mean, I assume he knows all the relevant details about the show from reading the scripts, and the show is probably designed so a viewer can get into it without knowing the games well, so there’s really no need to know all the lore stuff from games that isn’t in the show anyway.
Plus TBH the dude is a movie star, he’s probably got movie star shit to do rather than putting a few hundred hours into a bunch of RPGs lol.
I think people have gotten some unrealistic expectations from Henry Cavill. For all I know, Walton Goggins has absolutely nothing to do with the writing, so why would he care much about the source material? I can respect him for just wanting to do his job, listening to how his boss wants him to do it.
It’s the director and the writers people should expect to care about the source material, not the actors.
Actors are creative people too. Several of Harrison Ford’s most iconic moments were ad libs. Famously, in Raiders of the Lost Ark he was supposed to have a whip vs sword fight during the Marian is kidnapped sequence. But he wasn’t feeling well, so he pulled his pistol and shot the swordsman instead, and then they rebuilt the scene around that. Also, Han Solo’s “I love you!” “I know.” moment was Ford.
“The writer writes, the director directs, the actor acts” is how you get the sludge Hollywood makes today.
Was Cooper Howard a character in the games or was the entire role written for this show?
If it was a character from one of the games, it would be so minor that I missed it. I think that character was created for the TV series.
I’m totally cool with this. He’s not involved in the creative direction. He’s just a damn good actor, he doesn’t need to understand the whole feral, or glowing one, or whatever. Let the writers write and actors act and ffs keep the executive away from both!!!
Fallout has inconsistent lore to begin with. There’s no be efit to having him know the lore.
Fair. It’s not like his character is in them.
Walton Goggins apparently
Sounds like a pretty standard Method Acting way of going about it.
He’d be perfect for the writer’s room
EDIT: Jokes aside, I respect his decision as an actor, but I also don’t have faith in the direction they’re giving him. Fans want him to play the games because they don’t have faith, either, and they’d like someone on set pushing for something closer in tone to the West Coast games than the East Coast games. He’s easily the best part of the show.
My mind’s eye flashes to something like The Master and I’m bummed that’s considered “gamey” by great actors. Not that I expect actors to go fucking play Fallout 1 with a Small Gun Crit/Speech build and go collect the Brotherhood’s data and confront the Master in a battle of words… but if someone would like to show Goggins on their phone that kind of thing is in the games, that the games themselves strived very hard to make living, colorful worlds, I think it certainly wouldn’t hurt the show. Hell if someone wants to show that scene to anyone currently at Bethesda I think it could positively impact the next game.
Spot on. People in this thread are incorrectly assuming that we want him to play them for “the lore” and not so he can see the tone of some of the performances.
But I do respect the actor wanting to take notes only from the director, it’s just I don’t trust this particular show’s direction.
Considering none of the characters in the game played the game either, I don’t see the controversy.
This thread is awful quality for this community, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised considering the article that started it is PC Gamer ragebait. Gamers are always looking for their next moment to rise up.
You think it gets any better? Lmao at least we don’t have the 4k word essays made by AI we get in every other post.
This community is usually pretty good, so yes it can get a lot better.
Not even just to see if the games are fun? Like, he doesn’t need to take inspiration for his character from it, but if he is interested in playing video games for fun outside of relating to his acting roles, why not give them a shot?
If he said “I just have no intetest in playing video games” I’d have no follow-up questions about it.
Maybe he plays other games for fun, it doesn’t say.
But it sounds like he’s choosing not to play these ones because it would affect how his perspective on (and he feels about) the setting, which may affect the quality of his work.
The games aren’t without charm but coming from the series first? It’d feel like those mobile gacha game ads. You think there are such interesting complex characters in a politically nuanced setting that tackles some tough themes about how people survive… after all, you’re acting one of them.
…and then you play the game where 90% of it is getting number pop-ups from shooting nameless raiders, and strangers yelling ring-a-ding-ding as you pass by.
I love FONV, but I think he made the right call. Even if he enjoyed the gameplay, it would change how to did his job.
I disagree with this approach. People are shaped by the world they live in, and so too would characters. Short of an isekai or total insanity, it doesn’t make sense for someone to be disconnected from their reality.
It would be like playing an Earthling Star Trek character in Starfleet, while having no idea about Klingons, Vulcans, or Wolf 359.
the way he says it, it just comes off as ignorant and condescending.
Grow up. I have played games since the 80s and i can’t be bothered to play rpgs. The man is busy.
Are you adapting an RPG to a different medium?
Is he saying “this is a fallout game you don’t get to play”? Instead of making this into a game, it became a tv show?
in which I am an avatar in. I don’t believe that I’m an avatar
He’s not an avatar, he’s an NPC. I cool one one, if not the coolest, but an NPC nonetheless. His costar is playable character.
