At this year’s SXSW, a small corner of Austin was transformed into the world of Filly from the upcoming Prime Video show Fallout, adapted from the popular video game franchise by Bethesda Studios. At the activation, we met some of the cast and crew behind the show and asked them everyone’s burning questions about the highly anticipated series.
One of the exciting things about Fallout compared to other video game adaptations is that it presents a new story with entirely new characters. This will allow the show to give something new to viewers, whether or not they are familiar with the games.
Actor Aaron Moten, who plays Maximus, a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel, said about the show’s approach: “I think it’s exciting because whether you’re the greatest fan of the amazing video game series or you’re new to it, I think we all get a new experience out of it, and something shared as a community.”
The cast and crew of Fallout discuss the new show
Todd Howard, the show’s executive producer and director of Bethesda Studios, adds, “I think it’s important to note that we wanted to approach it kind of like we do with a game. Set in a unique place to tell a new story but in the world of Fallout. So if you love the world of Fallout, or you’ve never experienced that, it feels new.”
Showrunner Graham Wagner went into a bit more depth on the reasoning behind this decision: “It felt like the only way to do it. Everyone’s experience playing the game is a little different. Some people play as a very tall woman, some people play as a very small man, and everything in between. So, where do you start? You can build it out of an NPC, but that really doesn’t feel right, either. So we just wanted to create three of our own characters like you do in the games and play with them.”
Showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet added: “And we chose characters that sort of manifested the central themes that we were most drawn to in Fallout. We were definitely faithful to all of the social commentary that we saw in the games. We wanted to create three central characters that manifested what we think are three of the most interesting kinds of factions within the games, which are the Vault dwellers, the Brotherhood of Steel members, and the Ghouls. No one in the Wasteland is thinking about the Ghouls, but that, in a way, makes them the most sympathetic as an audience member or as a player.”
Speaking of the Ghouls, this is the role that acclaimed character actor Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight, The Righteous Gemstones) steps into. It’s an exciting role blending the actor’s comedic and dramatic talents into one incredibly engaging character. This is what he had to say about his role as the Ghoul in Fallout:
“Well, every role I take has one thing in common: they’re all Scorpios. I think for every actor worth their weight in salt, whenever you get good words, it’s easy to play pretend. I read the first two scripts right out of the gate and was so blown away, emotionally, by the journey that I was being taken on. I laughed, and I cried, and I had to hold my breath, and that’s what it is from the very beginning to the very end of the first season. Geneva and I’ve done a movie together before, Tomb Raider, and I’ve been a fan of Graham’s and such a big fan of Jonah [Nolan’s] for such a long time that I was just grateful to get the invitation to go on this journey, and I’m really proud of it.”
Of course, a show like Fallout, which adapts games heavily centered on world-building, would need a massive scale. And there’s no doubt that Fallout looks absolutely epic.
Executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan says about the show’s scale: “That was a big challenge with the show. I’d known and played and loved the games, and one of the hallmarks of the games, beyond the unique tone and the amazing storytelling, is the world as a character. Each unique setting, whether it’s Washington, DC, Boston, or Las Vegas, you’re experiencing that world. So we knew as a filmmaker, the challenge was ‘okay, the audience can’t take the controller and look in this little corner, they can’t step back, they can’t climb on top of the building and look out over this great vista, so we have to do that for them.’ So we kind of over-indexed a little bit in terms of trying to gather up that scope. We went to Namibia, we went to New York, we went to Utah, we tried to gobble up as much beauty and scope as we could.”
And for those worrying about how faithfully the show brings the world of Fallout to life, Todd Howard has you covered:
“Well, there’s a lot of easter eggs if you’re a fan, and I think after the episodes, everybody will point them out. One of the things that’s unique about Fallout is the world that existed before the apocalypse. And in a game, you can only show it in bits, whereas in the show, you can go back in time very easily and show things, and they explored that in some really unique and great ways that big fans are going to love.”
Fallout streams on Prime Video beginning April 12.
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