‘Forever Changed’: Amazon’s Fallout Cast Discusses Their Characters’ Season 1 ‘Violent’ Journeys Through the Wasteland
Major spoilers follow Fallout on PrimeVideo.
The cast of Amazon Fallout series have begun with their characters’ season 1 “violent” journeys through Earth’s post-apocalyptic Wasteland.
Speaking exclusively to Ny Breaking, Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins revealed that the life-or-death scenarios Lucy, Maximum and The Ghoul face throughout the Fallout TV show ‘forever changing’ who they are as individuals.
For the idealistic Lucy, the prospect of killing people, separating the deceased Siggi Wilzig’s head from his body and confronting terrifying monsters like the Gulper undermined the innocence she possessed before her quest to find her kidnapped father rescue began. As Purnell explained, from the moment Lucy leaves the safety of Vault-33 in the Prime Video series, there’s no going back to the naive, unworldly person she was. To that end, Purnell made a creative suggestion that Jonathan Nolan and the show’s writing team had not thought of, to prove how the brutal, dystopian world reshapes its worldview and sense of identity.
“She ends up torn, ugly and crumpled at the end of Season 1,” Purnell explained. “It was very important to me to show what she really went through and how it (a costume change) became a reflection of what was going on inside her.
“One of the interesting things I worked on with (costume designer) Amy Westcott is Lucy’s shoes. I don’t know if many viewers will notice, but she loses one of her shoes, and I think it symbolizes that Lucy has lost a part of herself and her ideals. At the end of episode four, she finds a new shoe – and that wasn’t in the original script. From then on, she carries a part of the Wasteland with her through that boot. I think this represents the way in which she was forced to survive, made the difficult choices she had to make, and was forever changed by her experiences.”
The electrically powered Maximus has already been designed for Moten Fallout‘s largely arid landscape. Maximus was born on the nightmarish surface world decades after the nuclear apocalypse known as the Great War, so he is already forced to survive every day of his life. However, his acquisition of the T-60 power armor suit in episode two not only offers him the chance to make a difference in the hellscape he calls home, but also gives him the thematic power to take on a difficult mission himself to start and complete his own mission. his ambitions to become a renowned member of the militaristic faction known as The Brotherhood of Steel.
“Maximus begins his journey by claiming the power he deems necessary to survive,” Moten said, “and he must make concerted but no less terrible choices to obtain and then keep (the power armor). Something violent is going on. that desire and the war that’s going on inside him and starting to work its way out, and I think that influences a lot of his journey and defines who he becomes as season one progresses.
As for Goggins, The Ghoul has already been changed – in more ways than one – by the horrific events he was subjected to as Cooper Howard, his former human form, during the Great War in October 2077. The Ghoul undertakes his own enlightening journey into the show – read my Fallout season 1 review while you’re here – but, as Goggins told me, the arc of The Ghoul is defined as much by the man Cooper was before the bombs fell as by who he is in the present.
“I had to understand who Cooper was before I could understand the cynical personality of The Ghoul,” Goggins explained. “Cooper was a 21st century movie star who was inspired by the great myths that arose about 20th century American exceptionalism and real actors of that era. Stars of that era were so graceful, full of great stories, and had great senses of humor. People like John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Arness – they had an ease, elegance and warmth that I wanted to tap into and explore within Cooper.
“Once I mastered that, I was able to turn that on its head for The Ghoul. He no longer sees the humanity in himself or anyone else. Making him struggle with the ‘Cooper within,’ so to speak, even though his interactions with Lucy and (Wilzig’s canine companion) CX-404 were not easy emotionally, but from a character perspective it ended up being extremely cathartic.”
There is much more to learn from my exclusive chats Fallout‘s cast, creator Jonathan Nolan, and Bethesda boss Todd Howard, the latter of whom explains how Amazon’s Fallout The TV show features the “one things we could never do” in the games it is based on. You can read more stories like this about one of the best Prime Video shows (in my opinion, of course) below.