'Fallout' Season 2 Interview: Walton Goggins

Moviefone speaks with Walton Goggins about 'Fallout' Season 2. "We get to spend so much more time with Cooper Howard this year," the actor teased.

Walton Goggins stars in 'Fallout' Season 2.

Premiering on Prime Video beginning December 17th is the second season of the popular adaption of the video game ‘Fallout’, which was created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (‘Captain Marvel’), and executive produced by Jonathan Nolan (‘Westworld’) and Lisa Joy (‘Reminiscence’).

The series stars Ella Purnell (‘Army of the Dead’), Aaron Moten (‘Father Stu’), Walton Goggins (‘Django Unchained’), Moisés Arias (‘Pitch Perfect 3’), Xelia Mendes-Jones (‘Havoc’), and Kyle MacLachlan (‘Twin Peaks’), as well as new season 2 cast members Justin Theroux (‘The Leftovers’), Kumail Nanjiani (‘Eternals’), and Macaulay Culkin (‘Home Alone’).

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of sitting down in-person with Walton Goggins to talk about his work on the second season of ‘Fallout’, how The Ghoul has changed since season one, what excited the actor about season 2, and if he knows Cooper Howard’s full backstory or if he likes learning about it with the audience.

Related Article: Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten Talk Prime Video's 'Fallout' Series

(L to R) Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins in 'Fallout' Season 2. Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti / Prime. Copyright: © Amazon Content Services LLC.

MF: To begin with, how has The Ghoul changed since season one and what you were most excited about exploring with the character this season?

Walton Goggins: We pick up where we left off in season one with the Ghoul and with Cooper Howard. Season one begins on this post-apocalyptic road trip across the Mojave Desert heading to New Vegas. He's traveling with Lucy. He's able to see her as a human being for the first time. This is the first time he's been around a person for any length of time and a very long time. She has a different point of view than mine. She's an optimist. I'm a nihilist. On the other side of this, one of them will win out. Either she'll become more like me, or I'll become more like her. The thing that was so challenging that I found myself being resistant to was being vulnerable. It was like the inverse of what I usually get to experience. So that was interesting. You dovetail that in with Cooper Howard, and picking up with him finding out that his wife is a principal architect for the ending of the world, and him realizing that the rug was pulled out from underneath him and the world that he thought existed doesn't exist and he is living in a world of chaos, and he has no control over it. We get to spend so much more time with Cooper this year, so you really get to see it from his point of view and how that informs The Ghoul. You understand him more predicated on Cooper's experience.

Walton Goggins in 'Fallout' Season 2. Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti / Prime. Copyright: © Amazon Content Services LLC.

MF: Finally, how much of Cooper Howards’ backstory do you know at this point? Did the writers tell you his entire history, or do you learn more about the character episode to episode like the audience does?

WG: No, I think it's changing. I mean, I have a direct pipeline to obviously the writers and to Jonah, and I've been invited to sit at the table and to collaborate with shows and movies for a long time now, so I get that extension, that courtesy, if you will. So, we do have those conversations and what that means, what could it mean? Then we'll have those talks and then it might be what we talked about, or it might be something radically different. But we all are trying to go in the same direction and say something because it's through Cooper Howard that you experience the world before the bombs dropped. The Ghoul is unique in this world and that all the other factions want to have the world look like they want it to look. The Ghoul, he wants nothing from the world. He just wants to find his family. That's all.

(L to R) Walton Goggins and Frances Turner in 'Fallout' Season 2. Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti / Prime. Copyright: © Amazon Content Services LLC.

What is the plot of ‘Fallout’ Season 2?

The second season continues the story set in the wasteland of post-nuclear America and will introduce New Vegas, a major location from the video game ‘Fallout: New Vegas’.