Exclusive interview! Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins on Fallout

Actors Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins their new show To fallthe video game on which it is based. To fall is a story about the end of the world but also the beginning of many new worlds. In a candid conversation with Firstposts Lachmi Deb Roy for her column Not just Bollywoodthe actors talk about the show and their connection with the world of video games.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Aaron and Walton, what was the preparation for the role like?

Aaron: While I was researching, I referenced Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. And was influenced by the character of Cassius. The character of Cassius is described as having ambition, like a hungry dog. The character was like, there was always this desire and need for something that he was missing and he had this hungry look. That's why he's hungry. So I had to work on that.

Walton:I've read the script 250 times and that's a lot of reading. You do the math. So it's always on my mind. It's always in my imagination. So I watched a lot of movies, I spent a lot of time putting on makeup every day. And I watched a lot of westerns, trying to figure out, okay, well, that's a good comparison for the lens or a good comparison for Cooper Howard. And on top of that, I think like so many other people in our industry, I just went through and created a playlist, you know, of maybe 50, 60, 70 songs that are always back- plan. It's almost like hearing a novel or something for the person you're playing.

Another thing I want to ask is about the makeup, it was like creating the look for the role. How did the process go? How long did it take you for the makeup or rather the makeover?

Walton:Well, it took us five months to get there, you know, even if they did, they had pictures of it. They had photos of them, a goal from the match. But that was just a starting point. And I, and I think maybe that was a little bit of the extreme version. And that was definitely part of the conversation at the beginning, but we quickly all agreed that we wanted it to always feel like me, so that I would always be there. And we tried contact lenses. Thank goodness it didn't work because it was extremely claustrophobic for me. And when you put them in, all of a sudden it becomes impossible to understand, right? It's you, you need his eyes. The eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. After trying three different iterations, we focused on this. And the last one really seemed to fit. And that's really what the show is about now.

And you played two characters in
To fall
one before, one after the apocalypse. So what were the challenges in making these two?

Walton:To really understand who Cooper Howard was. I think for me, anyway, you have to understand how rich and full a person's life is to understand what they ultimately lost. I just suppose that, while I don't really believe in making a lot of choices as an actor, I do believe in being prepared to lay the groundwork for the magic to happen. And it’s this chemistry that storytellers are really about. But there had to be a connection between these two people over 200 years, despite the difference in their life experiences. And I was able to kind of find that with a sense of humor. And a certain swagger and, I suppose, on some level, a charisma, you know an actor would have of his stature, and although he's a B movie star, not an A-list movie star. So things of that nature. I spent a lot of time thinking about it.

And for you, Aaron, did you play the game to understand what the world was like?

I didn't play the game to do that, but I found myself, you know, watching other people play, now online, on YouTube and Twitch and you know, watching especially season players, you know, people who really know what they're doing. I do. This should not have been a discovery for me.

The scripts were a surprise to me. I didn't know the tone of To fall. After reading the script, I was surprised at how this comedy aligned so well with this post-apocalyptic political satire. My challenge was where did this come from? So I wanted to enter the world directly.

Walton, did you know him To fall the universe before the film?

Me and not a player, my son is a player. I'm not a gamer. And so I had heard the name To fall, but I didn't know anyone at all. And I'm glad I wasn't, that I didn't play the game, and I have the blessing of Todd Howard, the man who invented the game.