Since its debut in April 2024, Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout streaming series has become the new face of the long-running role-playing video game franchise, as the eight-episode first season exploded out of the gate and earned acclaim for its sharp writing, world-building, and strong performances that brought the beloved game universe to life in a fresh, cinematic way.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, survivors emerge from underground vaults to a nuclear wasteland filled with mutated survivors and a different society, with the series taking place two centuries after the Great War of 2077. Starring Walton Goggins (Ant-Man) as The Ghoul/Cooper Howard, Ella Purnell (Army of the Dead) as Lucy MacLean, and Aaron Moten (Emancipation) as Maximus), the unlikely trio, who hail from different factions within the franchise’s premise, find their paths colliding.
In reality though, the three stars also find themselves embracing the source material in their own unique way. During a recent media junket in Sydney, Australia, Geek Culture got to sit down with the trio and ask them about their participation in the franchise outside of the show and to no one’s surprise, well-known character actor Goggins is still resistant when it comes to playing the games.
“No, no, it hasn’t changed,” Goggins, 54, acknowledges, referring to his earlier decision not to play the games.
“There will come a time where I’ll play the game. Maybe. But this is the world that I know. This is a very pure experience for me and I don’t want to be responsible for carrying the video game into my experience. Because this is real to me. Cooper Howard is a real person. The Ghoul is a real person, Lucy is a real person, and so is Maximus,” he reasons, explaining his decision to keep his performance pure and uncoloured by the source material.
On the other hand, Moten, 36, calls the games a resource, even though he doesn’t actually play the games, of which there have been five main ones since 1997, either.
“For me, the game has always been a resource, but through YouTube, you know, as streamers posting their videos of going through gameplays,” he rationalises, but stops short of crossing over completely, and jokes, “I’m worried that I’m going to be that guy coming to set being like, ‘What if we did this thing that I did last night in the game’?”
Which leaves 29-year-old Purnell as the only one who did her home, so to speak.
“I did play the games, and I enjoyed it, and it was just a fun new level for me. I also love playing video games in the name of work, and it just gave me a little bit of what the audience experience.”
While she acknowledges that she was pretty bad at the games, it did however make the whole filming experience quite a bit more magical and special for her, for moments like wearing the Pip-Boy and walking into the Vault for the first time.
“I’m not very good at the games. Disclaimer. I’m pretty bad,” she admits.
The first season pulled in 65 million viewers in its first 16 days and surpassed 100 million viewers in just six months, becoming the streamer’s largest premiere audience for any series released to date. The series struck a rare balance of honouring decades of Fallout lore with crafting a story compelling enough to hook even viewers new to the wasteland. With season two premiering on 17 December, anticipation is already building as fans look forward to new factions, unexplored territories, including fan-favourite New Vegas, and deeper dives into the characters whose fates were left hanging in the finale of season one.
“Lucy actually picks up the beginning of season two very similarly to how she ends season one,” explains Purnell. “She’s trying to keep with the way she always has, believing in people’s goodness… But of course, after learning what she does at the end of season two, there is this part of her in the back of her brain that is broken. There is this big question mark that she tries to ignore, tries to suppress, and doesn’t want to think about, because if she thinks about that, it gets too big.”
One thing Lucy has to contend is, if she was wrong about her father, Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks), who was responsible for the bombing of Shady Sands, a major location in the franchise.
“What if I was wrong about my father? What else am I wrong about? Am I going to be like him? What am I going to do when I find him? But of course, the more time she spends with the Ghoul on their road trip and the more time spent on the wasteland, the more that part of her simmers and bubbles and begins to come out,” says Purnell.
And it’s this change that the series will focus on. Moten adds, “Who knows where these characters are going to end up. We do have this growth constantly with each of our characters, and they might be unrecognisable from how we started the story by the time we finish.”
For Goggins’ Ghoul, whose character was mutated by exposure to radiation, the change he is looking for, is not becoming human again. “His journey with Ella, with Lucy across this post-apocalyptic Mojave desert road trip is one of him resisting becoming human on any level, becoming vulnerable on any level, and incrementally, he’s going to change both in the present and as Cooper Howard in the past,” says Goggins.
One thing that is unlikely to change though, is the relationships between the trio of characters, no matter how much fans want it. The TV show’s passionate fanbase have embraced the trio and developed a few wild theories, including shipping or expressing a desire for two characters to be in a relationship, with shippers putting a Lucy and The Ghoul pairing, or Ghoulsy for short, front and centre, to the amazement of Goggin’s, who turns to look at his castmates with a surprise look.
“I’ve never heard that,” he responds, to which Purnell’s replies rather frustratingly with, “Have you not?”
“No!” exclaims Goggins.
“I get asked this quite a lot, and it’s quite telling that I get asked this a lot and you don’t,” she continues to her gobsmacked co-star, and with Moten laughing on the side.
Ghoulsy fans, take note because this topic, which Purnell and Moten seem to be quite familiar with, started a hilarious conversation between the three that showed how comfortable they felt with each other, as they mocked each other’s responses and questioned the shipping.
“Here’s what I would say – You guys need therapy,” Purnell replies, speaking directly to the camera and addressing the small pocket of fandom that have brought this want to her attention.
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” says Goggins, who seemingly wants to respond but is at a loss for words, before adding, “This is. Yeah.”
Pointing to Goggins (but referring to The Ghoul), Purnell adds while still looking at the camera, “You can’t fix him. You can’t save him. Let it go.”
“I have never heard people. No,” says Goggins to Purnell, before looking at Moten with a smile and asking, “Does this make you jealous?”, which makes Purnell burst into laughter.
He continues jokingly at Purnell, “You know what? You need to stop pitching this storyline. Will you stop pitching it?”
“I think the relationship with the Ghoul and Lucy have is a really beautiful thing. They’re both looking for the people that they love. Let’s leave it at that,” she concludes, before giving Moten some side eye for his continued laughing at the conversation.
“Shut up,” she says laughingly.
“I just love you guys,” he replies, before Goggins lovingly grabs his arm and asks, “What are you doing tomorrow night?”, as if wanting to feed the shippers with some The Ghoul x Maximus intent.
Professionally though, the three have also developed their own strong relationships, as it’s clear that the spirit of camaraderie and mutual respect runs deep among the Fallout cast, especially during production for an episode in particular.
“The most demanding was episode five,” says Goggins. “Can’t tell you what happens, but I can’t wait for you see it. It is so surprising and so unpredictable. And on the other side of this experience was one of the toughest days of my life as an actor.”
Meanwhile, Moten received some advice from his co-star to get through that shoot. “I was actually just really thankful that [Walton] was there that day, because he gave me some words that actually was exactly what I was hearing in my own head. Sometimes it helps to have a little grease on the doorhead, you know.”
As for Purnell, she is looking forward to audiences’ reaction to the season finale. “I think that the finale of this season was a lot to wrap my head around. And yeah, you’ll see, you’ll see.” In fact, during the red carpet screening the night before, Purnell did also share a little tidbit that fans should look out for episodes 4 and 5, which she is excited for folks to see as well.
“It’s very fun, and you see a whole new side of Lucy you’ve never seen before.”
Fallout season two premieres on Prime Video on 17 December 2025 with a new episode releasing weekly.
Yonk is a geek who is fortunate enough to have an equally geeky Star Wars fan for a wife, who owns a LEGO Millennium Falcon encased in a glass coffee table as their home’s centre-piece.
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