In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and senior editor Vinnie Mancuso for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day.
On this episode of In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast, Walton Goggins dives into his process for becoming the mutated bounty hunter the Ghoul on Prime Video’s post-apocalyptic video game adaptation “Fallout”—a role that just earned him an Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actor in a drama series. Goggins also gets candid about his earliest days in the industry and looks back on the bold choices that led to his eclectic career.
Listen and subscribe to In the Envelope to hear our full conversation with Goggins:
Goggins’ career kicked off with a bold decision at just 14 years old.
“I said, ‘Look, Mom, I need you to take me downtown. There’s this woman that casts these movies here in Atlanta. Her name is Shay Griffin. I need you to drive me down there.’ And she said, ‘Well, do you have an appointment?’ I said, ‘I don't need an appointment.’ And she said, ‘OK, yeah, sure. I’ll drive you down there.’
It was in the afternoon, after school. I just knocked on the door and pretty much said the same thing to the receptionist. I said, ‘I don’t need an appointment. She’ll want to see me.’ I just sat down in the office—and there were other people auditioning for things, but I just didn’t leave. After an hour, this very regal, beautiful woman came outside, and she said, ‘I’m sorry, are you Walton Goggins?’ And I said, ‘I am.’ And she said, ‘I’m Shay Griffin.’ And I said, ‘Oh, you’re here. You’re the person I’m here to see.’
She brought me back into her room, and we must’ve talked for 45 minutes. I think, more than anything, she was taken with the audacity of this 14-year-old boy who fancied himself, really, not even an actor. I just had a lot going on in my head and my heart, and I think she just wanted to see who I was. And over the course of that relationship, which still continues today, she has been a mentor and a dear friend of mine.”
“Fallout” Credit: JoJo Whilden/Prime Video
His approach to each role involves intensive imagination work.
“[My process] feels so ethereal and ephemeral and filled with such bullshit, but I just read [the script]...15, 20, 50 times. The more you read it, the words are just a road map…. [It’s] like looking at a Google map. You’re passing these darker green shades on each side. They’re just representative of the world that’s going on right outside your window. I find that the more that you read it, the more that your imagination takes over it.
[Say the scene is] you walk into a doctor’s office with your spouse, and she was just diagnosed with cancer. You could think, OK, how do I sit in that room? Who is my wife, and what do we have in common? Do we go to bed earlier? Do we go to bed late? Do we read books? Maybe I don’t read; maybe she reads. What does our bedroom look like? What does breakfast look like? What does a car ride look like? Do we have a child, or do we not have a child?
Then all of a sudden, you find yourself walking on to a set with an actress that you’ve never met, and she’s real to you. That doctor’s office is real to you…. I find that work, which is extremely intensive—I find it infinitely interesting. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to. Whether I’m good at it or not, that’s up to somebody else.”
It took time and dedication to get into his character on “Fallout.”
“It wasn’t until the very first day that we were filming that I had everything on at once—meaning I had all the prosthetics on, it was like 106 degree heat index, and I had, for the first time, the costume on, the hat on, the guns on. [And then you think,] This is a person who knows where everything is on his body. So, what do you do with the time that you have? All of these things never came together before that first day of filming. And so, I just sat in my trailer waiting to be called and just drew my gun 500 times, pulled the scabbard off my back, [grabbed] the knife.
Then I walked up to set, and I still didn’t know what the audience was going to be able to read or understand. Because I really didn’t know what the [prosthetic] pieces were doing, and I’m not going to exaggerate facial expressions to get across a point. And so I was deeply insecure about it, and I spent the first couple of days, after every take, looking at [director Jonathan Nolan], saying, ‘Anything? Do you see what’s going on inside of me?’ And he just kept saying, ‘Hey, man, I see it all. I see everything. It’s in your eyes. It’s in your body, man. It’s always there.’ It was a big lesson for me. What is that old saying? If you feel it, the audience will feel it.”
The episode is brought to you by Netflix.