Walton Goggins’ vault to superstar started with his role as The Ghoul in “Fallout.”
The veteran actor’s power to put the snarl and the soul into the nuclear-war-surviving bounty hunter for the 2024 hit Prime Video series, based on the popular video game, earned Goggins his second career Emmy nomination and surprise sex symbol status.
The role set off a career chain reaction that culminated in a 2025 Goggins explosion − his Emmy-nominated role of Rick Hatchett in HBO’s “The White Lotus,” his flamboyant final bow as Uncle “Baby” Billy Freeman in “The Righteous Gemstones,” his first time hosting “SNL,” and his ubiquitous, lucrative Walmart TV campaigns.
It’s not lost on Goggins, 54, that the Season 2 “Fallout” return (first episode streaming, with weekly installments starting Dec. 24) crowns the memorable year.
“We all have these moments in our lives where you can mark it as a before and after something happened. And this next iteration started with ‘Fallout,’ ” Goggins tells USA TODAY. “It feels symmetrical. This Season 2 feels like a real bookend to this life chapter.”
Why the ‘Fallout’ over The Ghoul was so strong
Goggins plays two “Fallout” roles − classic Old Hollywood star Cooper Howard in luscious pre-dystopia flashbacks, and Cooper’s nuclear-fallout-ravaged Ghoul 200 years later. The disfigured loner is the classic Western wasteland antihero who, through Goggins’ haunted eyes, became TV’s most unlikely sex symbol. Goggins gambled by insisting on using his own eyes through the “claustrophobic” prosthetics.
“They wanted me to wear contacts at first, but I fought back. We take for granted how much we focus on a person’s eyes to receive information,” he says. “The eyes are the windows to the soul.”
Goggins had ‘nothing in the tank’ after ‘White Lotus’
The Goggins 2025 imperial period was also the result of a two-year endurance-testing work schedule. After an emotionally draining five-month “White Lotus” Thailand shoot in August 2024, the exhausted actor paused before reentering the “Righteous Gemstones” final season underway in South Carolina. He even called creator, co-star and longtime collaborator Danny McBride − Jesse Gemstone in the TV evangelist dark comedy − with biblical doubts.
“I thought I had nothing in the tank,” Goggins says. ” ‘The White Lotus’ was such an intense emotional, physical and spiritual experience that I told Danny, ‘Man, I don’t know if I have it.’ He told me, ‘You’ll find it. I’m not worried.’ “
Goggins flew from Thailand to Charleston, went straight into wardrobe fittings, and was a pallid version of his exuberant preacher character on the set the next day.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. I forgot who I was playing,” says Goggins, who admits he blew “like five” first takes. It was enough to draw concerned looks from director McBride.
“But then I said, ‘I’ve got it.’ I exhaled. And I was back on track.”
After the “Righteous Gemstones” Season 4 premiere in March 2025, HBO’s Sunday night lineup, featuring the viral hit “White Lotus,” featured a double dose of Goggins.
“I’ve never had it line up like that; it was even on the same network,” Goggins says.
What happens to Goggins in Season 2 of ‘Fallout’?
With Goggins still riding high, Season 2 of “Fallout” will feature a deeper dive into The Ghoul’s tragic Hollywood backstory.
“The thing I’m most excited about is people really get to meet Cooper Howard,” Goggins says. “In this next chapter, you spend a lot of time with him.”
Cooper learns about his wife, Barb (Frances Turner), and her work with the sinister Vault-Tec, the group secretly spurring on global nuclear destruction for nefarious reasons. Even 200 years later, The Ghoul is obsessed with finding his wife and his daughter, Janey Howard (Teagan Meredith), convinced they are still alive.
“Fallout” makeup chief Jake Garber has streamlined The Ghoul’s makeup process, which used to take 2½ hours.
“We’ve set up a real routine,” says Goggins, who bides his time watching a mood-appropriate movie — i.e., no weepies.
“One morning I watched ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ and I started crying. I was like: ‘Oh no. I can’t do this. It’s really going to mess with the prosthetic.’ So, I can’t do sad.”
In Season 2, The Ghoul does move to something resembling emotion with perky fellow traveler and former vault-dweller Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), who is searching for her disgraced father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan). The disparate duo embark on an “apocalyptic road trip” across the Mojave Desert, Goggins says.
“This is one of the oddest pairings I’ve ever had in my career,” he says. “Eventually, along the way, The Ghoul asks Lucy a question about herself. This is all new territory for him. Something is happening with The Ghoul, who resists becoming human on any level.”
Goggins is not taking his foot off the gas in his career. After promoting “Fallout” around the world, he’s getting right back to work until Season 3 starts filming.
“I had to carve out this chunk of time for promotion, but I go right back to work on one movie and do a couple more movies next year before coming back to this show. So that’s what I’m doing.”
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