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"No, I haven't sat down to play the games," said Walton Goggins, who plays pre-war movie star Cooper Howard and his post-war counterpart The Ghoul. "And I won't. I won't. I won't play the games. I'm not interested."

The reason is actually pretty simple: Goggins doesn't want to think of the world or the characters of Fallout as elements of a game.

"All of a sudden, I'm looking at this world from a very different perspective, and as something on a screen in which I am an avatar in. I don't believe that I'm an avatar. I believe The Ghoul exists in the world. I believe that Cooper Howard exists in the world." he said.

"The best way that I can serve this world and serve the fans of this game, I think, is to go to work every single day and believe the circumstances that I'm presented with," Goggins said.

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[–] kaidenshi@lemmy.world 113 points 2 months ago (27 children)

Good for him. Actors who want to embrace their character and the world they are portrayed in shouldn’t feel pressured to consume the source material, whether that’s a video game series or a book, especially when the show or movie could wildly diverge from the source.

[–] Skyline969@lemmy.ca 110 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Counterpoint, Henry Cavill in The Witcher. Though he left once they started diverging from the source because he knew that it would make the show subpar. And it did.

Knowing the source material can help actors understand more nuance of their character and the world the show takes place in.

[–] jrbaconcheese@yall.theatl.social 87 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Counter-counter: Henry Cavill was playing the Witcher, the central character in the lore. Walter Goggins is playing someone not in the original lore.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The word you are looking for is pointercount. Note somewhat NSFW for language.

https://youtu.be/-sVlZ_SaKnk

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[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pointercount, the lore in Fallout is grossly inconsistent which is not the case for The Witcher.

[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The lore in Fallout is grossly inconsistent because of a lack of Henry Cavills working at Bethesda.

There's still a chance to retcon stupid shit. I really, really would prefer that outcome to "eh the lore in this RPG series doesn't matter that much.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The lore in Fallout is grossly inconsistent because of a lack of Henry Cavills working at Bethesda.

They have had staff that knew the lore the fact is they decided to change things because it made the game more fun. For example mutants and supermutants should not be in almost any part of the wasteland as the means to create them is not universally available according to lore, yet they are in every single game because they are fun enemies to fight.

Fallout chose fun gameplay over consistency.

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[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago

There’s a difference in knowing the source material and being a fan/playing the games.

[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: You can know the source material without having played the game.

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[–] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Sure, but if everyone later complains that the show was too different from the source material, they'll look back to things like this.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fallout has the most inconsistent lore of almost any IP

[–] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago

Fair point, not exactly the ideal ip for "lore accuracy"

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago

And if that happens the odds of it being the fault of a single actor are zero.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 10 points 2 months ago

It doesn't really matter for Fallout either, it's pretty basic at its core. It's not like he needs some deep understanding of the factions to play a character here. It's just a post-apocalyptic world, where his character happens to have no hair or nose. It's always been a sandbox, which lends itself well to a show.

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[–] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 109 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Makes perfect sense from the perspective of an actor.

They want their performance to come naturally and with the direction of the writers/directors.

Playing the games can make an actor subconsciously act how they think would fit the games rather than how would fit their specific character.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I was going to make this it's own comment, but it fits well as a reply here.

I don't agree with this. I don't think he needs to play them, but the argument doesn't make sense. Would he say the same if it were a movie? I'm willing to bet not. He just doesn't want to play the games, and that's fine. The bullshit excuse of "not wanting to believe the world" is stupid. If you're making a movie set in a larger cinematic universe you don't get to act noble about refusing to engage in the rest of the media. It being a video game doesn't change anything.

[–] MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think he's trying to act noble. I think he's just very aware of his own acting process and how his brain works. It'd be different if he said nobody in the cast should play the games. Or maybe he doesn't think it's a great idea for the star of a video game adaptation to say he doesn't like video games.

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[–] SGG@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Understandable, but he might never know the glory that is fisto, which makes me sad.

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[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 74 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, it’s not like he’s the writer lol

Doesn’t seem like an issue to me

[–] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 2 months ago

He finds it to be an issue subjectively for him so since he’s doing the acting, I’d say he probably knows what’s best for himself as an actor.

[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 47 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Makes sense to me. The Ghoul is an original character, and Goggins doesn't need to know a lot about the setting or source material.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I mean, I assume he knows all the relevant details about the show from reading the scripts, and the show is probably designed so a viewer can get into it without knowing the games well, so there's really no need to know all the lore stuff from games that isn't in the show anyway.

Plus TBH the dude is a movie star, he's probably got movie star shit to do rather than putting a few hundred hours into a bunch of RPGs lol.

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think people have gotten some unrealistic expectations from Henry Cavill. For all I know, Walton Goggins has absolutely nothing to do with the writing, so why would he care much about the source material? I can respect him for just wanting to do his job, listening to how his boss wants him to do it.

It's the director and the writers people should expect to care about the source material, not the actors.

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[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 33 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm totally cool with this. He's not involved in the creative direction. He's just a damn good actor, he doesn't need to understand the whole feral, or glowing one, or whatever. Let the writers write and actors act and ffs keep the executive away from both!!!

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

Fallout has inconsistent lore to begin with. There's no be efit to having him know the lore.

[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

He'd be perfect for the writer's room

EDIT: Jokes aside, I respect his decision as an actor, but I also don't have faith in the direction they're giving him. Fans want him to play the games because they don't have faith, either, and they'd like someone on set pushing for something closer in tone to the West Coast games than the East Coast games. He's easily the best part of the show.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 2 months ago

Sounds like a pretty standard Method Acting way of going about it.

[–] halfsalesman@piefed.social 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If he is dedicated to the world and his character, that's sufficient. Hes a fantastic actor. buuuut...

I would suspect that him playing the games would not make him "think of the world or the characters of Fallout as elements of a game." but I'm not Walter Goggins. Realistically, hes just not into video games with major story campaigns and doesn't understand they're just a different form of story telling media. He's thinking of video games as exclusively as an avenue of competition, mastery, or challenge.

So I think hes wrong, but I don't know that it matters that materially.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 15 points 2 months ago

Fair. It's not like his character is in them.

[–] handsoffmydata@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago

Walton Goggins apparently

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s not like his character has a special meta understanding of the fallout games or universe

He’s acting the character like he’s a professional actor because he is and a good one too

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[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This thread is awful quality for this community, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised considering the article that started it is PC Gamer ragebait. Gamers are always looking for their next moment to rise up.

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[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

Considering none of the characters in the game played the game either, I don't see the controversy.

[–] araneae@beehaw.org 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My mind's eye flashes to something like The Master and I'm bummed that's considered "gamey" by great actors. Not that I expect actors to go fucking play Fallout 1 with a Small Gun Crit/Speech build and go collect the Brotherhood's data and confront the Master in a battle of words... but if someone would like to show Goggins on their phone that kind of thing is in the games, that the games themselves strived very hard to make living, colorful worlds, I think it certainly wouldn't hurt the show. Hell if someone wants to show that scene to anyone currently at Bethesda I think it could positively impact the next game.

[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

Spot on. People in this thread are incorrectly assuming that we want him to play them for "the lore" and not so he can see the tone of some of the performances.

But I do respect the actor wanting to take notes only from the director, it's just I don't trust this particular show's direction.

[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I see what he's saying, but none of this is that serious. Just do your job and act, dude. I don't care if you play Fallout, play Hello Kitty Island Adventure, or play Pogs. Make the show good.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is low key amazing. I hope he plays it.

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