Unpacking ‘Fallout’s’ Ghoul: Walton Goggins Says Undead Bounty Hunter Is ‘Far From Sinister’

At the end of the first episode of Prime Video’s “Fallout,” the Ghoul, played by Walton Goggins, is introduced, a post-apocalyptic “ruthless” bounty hunter and survivor roaming the wastelands. The Ghoul is a link to the pre-apocalyptic world and its current state of endless wastelands 219 years later. Many years ago, he was Cooper Howard, an actor who starred in Western films and had a family.

The show seeks to unravel the Ghoul’s backstory across eight episodes.

Sitting down for Amazon’s Anatomy of a Character, “Fallout” costume designer Amy Westcott explained her design ideas for crafting the character. Early on she knew she wanted to use “Fallout” colors, specifically the blue that is seen in the Vault shelters and the uniforms. When Cooper Howard is introduced, he is in cowboy attire with a hat and shirt. And since the Ghoul is derived from Cooper when she made him carry on the original cowboy costume. “It’s been through many years of distress,” she said.

Joining Westcott were executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan, series creator and showrunner Graham Wagner, and Goggins. Both Nolan and Wagner had discussed the variations to the Western genre, the changes it had undergone, and how that played into the designs. Wagner said, “The costume cemented that this is the Gene Autry-era Western, and he becomes the postmodern Western star and the tragedy of culture moving from the sweet Gene Autry-era of cowboy hero to we’re all just killers, aren’t we? That is sort of a progression of culture. It gets darker and darker as we go.”

Getting the Ghoul’s outfit right was imperative, and for both Westcott and Nolan, it began with the silhouette. Westcott had the idea to shred the bottom. “It created a unique silhouette, this scarecrow-feeling. You instantly read the age of the characters. There’s so much storytelling,” Nolan said. And when Goggins stepped into the outfit, he understood exactly why silhouette was important, and how it lent itself to the visual storytelling aspect of this character.

Goggins worked with prosthetics makeup guru Vincent Van Dyke and makeup department head Jake Garber to transform him into the Ghoul. In total, nine pieces of thin silicon were applied to Goggins’ face. But he also wore silicone pieces on his hand. The transformation initially started at five hours, but Van Dyke and Garber whittled it down to under two hours.

“We still want it to look like me, and to see me and to feel me under these layers,” Goggins said. The idea was this character was someone who had seen a lot in his 200 years, so Wagner suggested adding in some nicks and cuts which were a roadmap of his journey and experience.

The key to understanding the Ghoul lay in his backstory. Introduced as this character at the end of the first episode, Wagner thought about what made the Ghoul special, and why his storyline was at the center of everything. It would be told through flashbacks, in a non-linear way.

Wagner explained, “In episode two, the audience discovers he was the original Vault boy. That is one of his lesser tragedies. He’s been in the room when all the exciting things have happened, and that made us double down on the character.” Originally, the idea was to have fewer flashbacks, but once the creatives had that piece of the puzzle, they wanted to do more.

Nolan noted the first episode showed two main aspects of the character – Cooper Howard, the actor/cowboy and ends with the Ghoul. Said Nolan, “I think understanding, that even though we’re going to come to know the Ghoul is as tough as they come and quite villainous when we first meet him, we’ll start armed with this knowledge that somehow there’s more than a little Gary Cooper in there, the Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, has somehow metastasized into this character.”

Lucy, a vault dweller played by Ella Purnell, leaves her safe space for the wastelands and encounters the Ghoul. And so, begins a complicated relationship as he pistol whips her and ties her up. And at one point, he feeds her to a giant gulper monster. As far as he’s concerned, she’s naive.

Goggins noted that while audiences may think the Ghoul is being sadistic and cruel, he disagrees. “I never looked at it that way at all. I looked at it as it wasn’t until she became human in his eyes that she became a problem.” Goggins added. “The Ghoul is far from sinister. He is just using her as bait. It is just another obstacle. It’s just another experience during the day. He doesn’t mean to harm her. She’s just a tool that he happened to come across looking for something that he needs to use in order to get what he has to do and survive another day in the wasteland.”

He has avoided becoming a feral ghoul and zombie-like for 200 years. But Lucy loses his medicine and now he’s on the precipice of dying. “They take this long walk across the desert – reminiscent of Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Blondie (Clint Eastwood) – but he sees her for who she is…there’s a certain amount of cynicism in the Ghoul at that moment,” said Goggins.

As the two venture through the Wastelands together, that journey reveals more of the Ghoul/Cooper Howard’s past.

“From the flashbacks, you understand there is a human under there. It is a very complicated, deliciously complicated character,” said Nolan. “I think part of the theme of the show is we’re well passed old ideas about good and bad. Westerns were about the advent of civilization. This is about the retreat of civilization. We’re getting further away from it. We get to see a little bit of empathy from the Ghoul in that latter-day storyline.”

And it’s Lucy who helps push the Ghoul toward his old self.

Watch the full conversation above.