From video game to series: How Prime Video’s ‘Fallout’ came about


Prime Video is opening the vault on April 11 with the launch of the highly-anticipated post-apocalypse series “Fallout.” 

“Fallout” was created by executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner. 

It focuses on the three survivors of the apocalypse: Lucy (Ella Purnell), Maximus (Aaron Moten), and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins). 

“Fallout” is set in Los Angeles in the year 2296, or 219 years after a nuclear explosion where people struggle to survive. It is an all-new, all-original series based on the popular “Fallout” video game franchise. 

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"Fallout" will premiere on Prime Video on April 11 (Prime Video)

"It's a story of have and have-nots. I've always really liked that the games are such an elegant metaphor for that," said Robertson-Dworet.

The cast also includes Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, Sarita Choudhury, Michael Emerson, Leslie Uggams, Frances Turner, Dave Register, Zach Cherry, Johnny Pemberton, Rodrigo Luzzi, Annabel O'Hagan, and Xelia Mendes-Jones. 

Nolan directed the first three episodes of the series. 

Even before the series became an idea, Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner were impressed by the video game “Fallout.” 

"Fallout 3 was the entry point for me. I didn't know much about it and I was in the mood for a distraction. I think [director/brother] Chris had tasked me with writing ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and so if that movie was slightly delayed, it was probably in part because of Fallout 3." said Nolan, the brother of “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan. 

About 10 years later, Nolan met with “Fallout 3” game developer and executive producer, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard, to discuss making the game into a series. 

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"Fallout" star Ella Purnell (Screenshot from Prime Video video)Fallout_interview3.jpg

"Fallout" director and executive producer Jonathan Nolan (Screenshot from Prime Video video)

"He liked my work, I liked his, it was just one of those great encounters. We walked away from it saying, 'Okay, well, we're definitely going to work together on this and figure it out,'" said Nolan. 

Howard said, "When I first talked to Jonah, honestly, he seemed like someone I had known for a long time. He'd obviously played the games a ton, and right from the get-go, his approach was in sync with what I was thinking."

To make the series, Nolan got co-showrunners Robertson-Dworet and Wagner, who said the only way to have the adaptation is to make an original story within the “Fallout” game universe. 

Nolan said they were “not interested in rehashing something that has been done beautifully as a game. Then, the question became how ambitious could we get with that story, which is where Geneva and Graham took over."

In an interview with Manila Bulletin last month in India, Nolan and Purnell talked about “Fallout.”

MacLachlan, known for “Desperate Housewives” and “Twin Peaks,” plays Hank, the father of Lucy in the series. He said “Fallout” is about “what society has been reduced to. There are survivors living in vaults underground, away from radiation, doing the best that they can with a can-do American attitude. The rest of the world has been banished to the surface of the planet, which is full of strange creatures, horrendous destruction and survivors are forced to do horrible things just to stay alive."

The story of “Fallout” is told through the character point of view of Lucy, Maximus and The Ghoul. 

Casting 

"Casting is the part of the process that I'm most excited about and it's also the scariest, but most rewarding part of this. We got very lucky here with Ella, Aaron and Walton," said Nolan. 

"I knew of the ‘Fallout’ games because everybody did. My friends had played it, my brothers had played it. When I met with Jonah, Geneva and Graham and they explained their approach to the world, the game and then the character – she's basically someone who would star in a toothpaste commercial but could also kill you, I was like, 'I'm in. I am 100 percent in. Sign me up,'" said Purnell, who learned that she bagged the role in a phone call on Valentine’s Day in 2022. 

Nolan said MacLachlan “is this very All-American kind of [guy] perfect for Lucy's dad, perfect for this."

"It's been so great to be able to work with him," Purnell said of MacLachlan. 

Moten is Maximus in “Fallout,” a surface-dweller and member of the military faction called the Brotherhood of Steel. 

“The script is so rigidly detailed, I was filled with joy to be reading something that I've never seen before. Maximus is a person who I think a lot of people hopefully find relatable, I do myself. He's struggling with these ideals in his head. There's a pure force driving him in his desire to help people, but he's caught in-between, in this world of wanting to do the honorable thing, but knowing that to reach some status or glory requires action by any means necessary – especially in a world like the Wasteland where you're often put at odds of kill or be killed,” said Moten. 

Goggins plays two roles in “Fallout”: The former movie star Cooper Howard, and  219 years later, he is the The Ghoul. 

"I've played a lot of bad-asses over the course of my career, none as badass as The Ghoul. He's a pretty intimidating guy, but I had never played someone like Cooper Howard, so I watched a lot of Gary Cooper, a lot of John Wayne, a lot of ‘Gunsmoke’ and I watched a lot of interviews," said Goggins. 

For The Ghoul character, Goggins underwent a long prosthetic application process. 

"I had to wear a whole mask. We wanted people to lean into The Ghoul and to not look away from him when he's on screen, but to study him. He's got a little swagger to him like the Marlboro man, if he had been smoking in a radiated world for 200 years. He has a similar swagger and charisma as Cooper and they're both funny as shit, but Cooper doesn't carry the pain around the way that the Ghoul does," said Goggins. 

Location 

To film “Fallout,” the cast and crew traveled to multiple locations, from New York to Namibia including the beaches of the Skeleton Coast.  

"On the second day, we were shooting at this abandoned diamond refinery right on the coast, and someone wandered over and told us, no one's ever shot there before. That was a unique experience for us. I've never shot somewhere so remote, where literally the only things there are hyenas. It's an incredibly beautiful and strange place," revealed Nolan. 

According to Purnell, "Jonah wanted to film this amazing abandoned shipwreck that had never been filmed. No one had touched it in hundreds and hundreds of years. We took a bare bones crew of eight – my makeup artist Mike Harvey, he did my makeup, my hair, props and costume that day. Eight of us took two helicopters, we flew five hours to film on the shipwreck and it was unbelievable. I think I will remember that for as long as I live, it was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced."

Creatures

“Fallout” will feature different mutated creatures including the Gulper, a giant mutated salamander that is a feature in the game “Fallout 4.” 

"The Gulper is a feature of Fallout 4; this kind of grotesque newt kind of amphibian thing and my contribution to it was we wanted to build that practically," said Nolan. "My addition was an idea that I sort of came up with looking at the Gulper's rows of weird-looking teeth.”

Attire 

One group consisting of Lucy, her father and other survivors lives in a Vault, an underground community. 

Costume designer Amy Westcott was presented the challenge of making different costumes based on different characters, spaces and time periods. 

"I am very proud of how the vault suit came out. And of how many we made – hundreds! Also, we made a lot of wearable art from pieces of trash - recycled and reworked items that were given a new life as an accessory or garment, with the idea that everything in the wasteland is collected and salvaged. One of my favorites was a very stylish hat made from a metal strainer with twisted forks,” said Westcott. 

"The moment I first tried on the vault suit, it really hit me like a ton of bricks that I was really doing this, we were really making ‘Fallout.’ I really felt the weight and the gravitas of what we were trying to accomplish and also the responsibility of bringing to life a concept and IP, a character that was so beloved and meant so much to so many people, the honor of having been given this opportunity that was not lost on me at all," said Purnell. 

"What was really comfortable was the footwear. We had some kind of a boot thing that was very cushiony. Having to stand around on a concrete slab for eight to 12 hours, I was very grateful for those boots," said MacLachlan. 

“Fallout” explores the subject of survival in a post-apocalyptic world but also provides humor and entertainment. 

"I think for me, playing Lucy as lawfully good as possible at the beginning gives me so much to play with throughout the season. When she meets Maximus and when she meets the Ghoul, that allows her to consider and really think about what made them that way and if she will allow herself to become like them." according to Purnell. 

About “Fallout” the series, Bethesda’s Howard said, It's been a great collaboration and creative endeavor having partners you trust. For someone like me and the team here at Bethesda, it's just a real blessing to see what they've done with it."

“Fallout” will have eight episodes and Purnell is wondering about her character’s fate.  

"By the end of season she is a changed woman. And I suppose I am excited to explore two things: Number one, will Lucy ever be the same? Will she ever be able to go back to the vault? It's kind of like the red pill vs. blue pill thing, once you have seen can you ever unsee? The second thing is I think her heart has been shattered and her moral goodness is decaying. She has had to do things that are unthinkable, and I don't know if she's going to be okay or if she's ever going to return to the Lucy we knew. What happens when you break the unbreakable? That's when something really dangerous occurs, I think. I have so many more questions!” she said. 

“Fallout” will premiere exclusively on Prime Video on April 11 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.