t the end of last year, someone on Twitter managed to perfectly sum up the appeal of the best character actor working today. “Love how if you put Walton Goggins in your thing you have a guaranteed instant additional 20% goodness factor,” they wrote. It’s a claim that stands up. Watch Goggins in– even the second Ant-Man film – and you’ll see a man who knows exactly how to elevate the material by sheer force of charisma alone.
We should start with the project he’s officially here to promote, Prime Video’s adaptation of the Fallout video game series. To call the games a phenomenon would be a heavy understatement. A franchise stretching back to the 90s, the four games throw players into a post-apocalyptic, retro-futurist wasteland, where they are forced to fight for survival in a world primed to kill them.Prime Video is firing on all cylinders with the series.
Goggins is almost unrecognisable as the Ghoul, in part due to the full-face prosthetic work that essentially turns him into a bright red, noseless skull. Which, as you may imagine, was not a lot of fun to wear. So you’re not worried? “People will criticise and applaud any endeavour, no matter what it is,” he says. “I don’t live my life that way. As artists, we have a responsibility to do the best job that we were hired to do, right? And I can tell you that there was no stone left unturned to make this experience. I feel confident that people will like it.