Prime Video’s official trailer for Fallout, based on the wildly popular video game series, opens with a dapper-looking Walton Goggins promoting nuclear fallout shelters known as Vaults. However, Goggins loses his spiffy attire as the trailer continues, transforming into The Ghoul in what’s become a post-apocalyptic hellscape known as the Wasteland.
The trailer also provides an extended look at Lucy, a naïve Vault Dweller who’s shocked to discover people are living outside of the safety of shelters, and Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. There’s plenty of action, comedy, and chaos in the trailer, capped off by a wink at the end.
Prime Video hosted a press conference prior to the trailer’s online debut with series stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets) and Aaron Moten (Emancipation). They were joined executive producers/showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, executive producer/director Jonathan Nolan, and executive producer Todd Howard from Bethesda Game Studios to discuss bringing the world of Fallout to life in the series, which will premiere with the release of the entire season on April 11, 2024.
FALLOUT PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:
On Adapting the Popular Video Game into a Series:
Jonathan Nolan: “I think it started, for me, with Fallout 3, which devoured about a year of my life. You know, I was an aspiring young writer at that point. It almost derailed my entire career. It’s so ludicrously playable and fun. No, I mean, seriously, the games were just incredible.
It’s such a rare thing and such an unbelievable thing – and I’ve gotten to do it twice in my career – to take something that you love and get a chance to play in that universe, to create your own version, I guess, of that universe. The first go-round for me was Batman, and this time with Fallout, a game that I absolutely love…a series of games that I absolutely loved. About five years ago, Todd and I went and had lunch together – it was a bit of a fanning-out moment for me – and just started talking about the possibilities of how you could take this incredible universe.
I mean, I think one of the things that’s so powerful about the Fallout series is that every game is a little different. Different characters, a different setting, and a different look into this extraordinary universe. And so, we came out of that lunch with a handshake deal that we were going to try to make this work.”
On Where the Series Fits into the Fallout Universe:
Graham Wagner: “It’s set in the world of Fallout, but it’s a new story that comes, sort of, after the events we’ve seen. So, the show is built on like 25 years of creativity and thinking and building. And we sort of thought the best thing to do is to continue that versus retread it, because that’s sort of what has worked with Fallout over the years. It’s traded hands, it’s changed, it’s been altered, and it’s a living thing. And yeah, we kind of felt like we ought to take a swing at trying to build a new piece on top of all of that.”
On Playing Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul:
Ella Purnell: “Lucy is a Vault Dweller, and what excited me about playing her was that she is so innocent and so naïve and obviously very privileged as well. […]It was exciting for me to start in that place. You know, she’s essentially a newborn baby. She hasn’t had any real-life experiences. All she knows is what she was taught and what she’s read in books that she has in the Vault. It’s limited. And then you put her on the Wasteland, and, you know, what happens? What happens with that? That’s really exciting for me to start in.”
Aaron Moten: “I play Maximus. He’s part of the Brotherhood of Steel. I guess, yeah, what excited me was a little bit of what Ella’s talking about. It’s like, you know, that starting place, and where you go from there. A person who’s lived in the Wasteland for his entire life and he has to have a certain type of moral ambiguity that is forced upon him, I think, living in the world that he lives in and where you go from there. How you hold on to what is your unique, pure self, and how that changes, and how you discover what it is that you want.”
(Walton Goggins wasn’t able to join the press conference live but did record a video discussing his character.)
Walton Goggins: “The Ghoul is, in some ways, the poet Virgil in Dante’s Inferno. He’s the guide, if you will, through this irradiated hellscape that we find ourselves in in this post-apocalyptic world. He is a bounty hunter – an iconic bounty hunter. He is pragmatic, he is ruthless, he has his own set of moral codes, and he has a wicked sense of humor. (Laughing) Much like me.
No, he’s a very, very, very complicated guy, and to understand him, you have to understand the person that he was before the war. He had a name. His name was Cooper Howard, and he was a vastly different person than the ghoul that you’ve seen so far.
Over the course of the show, through his experience back in the world before the nuclear fallout, you will understand how the world was. And he is the bridge between both these worlds. And I hope you enjoy it.”
On Creating the World of Fallout:
Jonathan Nolan: “We talked a lot about the power armor. The tone was a big thing. I think the tone was maybe the most challenging and the most intimidating thing for me. But working with Geneva and Graham, you knew that we were going to be in a really good place with that incredibly ambitious story.
On a technical level, the scope of the world and the power armor, in particular, was one of those things you go, ‘Oh, how on earth are we going to do that?’ But we got there.”
On Fallout’s Tone and the Series’ Themes:
Geneva Robertson-Dworet: “I think it’s not just the incredible tone, which is, as people have talked about, this unbelievable blend of action and comedy and just weirdness. But I think it’s, you know, these incredibly prescient themes, factionalism being maybe the most obvious. When you play the game Fallout, you go from settlement to settlement or from faction to faction. And that was something that we were really excited to manifest with our heroes. You know, Ella being the Vault Dweller, Aaron being the Brotherhood of Steel member, and Walton being sort of the character that nobody really cares about – the ghouls in the Wasteland. But in a way that makes them, of course, the most empathetic.”
Jonathan Nolan: “I think you also have a moment that we’re in right now in which the world, you know, it seems to be evermore frightening and dour. And so, an opportunity for us to work on a show that gets to look that in the eye, right, and we get to talk about the end of the world, but to do it with a sense of humor. I think, honestly, there’s a thread of optimism woven into the show as well, that I think for us is a bit of expiation to be able to work on this every day.”
On Life on the Fallout Set:
Aaron Moten: “Every day on set was a new, fun challenge. And it’s super exciting as an actor, I think, to get the opportunity to show up to work to do outrageous things. You know, I think we spend a lot of time doing things that are normal or there’s a mundaneality to them. You know what I mean? And we spend a lot of time doing that at work. So, to get to trudge around the Wasteland with the power armor by my side is an experience in itself. And getting to see our stunt performer, Adam, in the full garb, and seeing the seas of people and crew on sets part for him…you know, that practical realness to it is really exciting.”
Ella Purnell: “Honestly, exactly what Aaron said. It was so much fun working on this show. Every shoot is hard. Not every shoot is fun, and this one was just so fun for an actor. No two days were the same. Every prop, every costume, every location, every set was just bonkers.
And, you know, one of the joys of working with Jonah is he loves to do everything as much as he can for real. So, you’re not working with that much greenscreen or dudes in green leotards. You get to really work with practicals. And that you don’t have to imagine so much. It’s real, and you can really do it. And [it was] just like a kid in a candy store, honestly. So much fun.”
