Walton Goggins, or Walton Sanders Goggins Jr to give him his full name, is an American actor hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, who has worked in both television and movies.
He got his first break on TV series In the Heat of the Night, the American police procedural crime drama, playing four different roles across four separate episodes.
Now 52, Goggins has starred in small screen series including The Shield (2002–2008); Justified (2010–2015); Vice Principals (2016–2017); The Righteous Gemstones (2019–present); and Invincible (2021–present).
He played turbulent lead character Shane Vendrell in the Shield for the entire series.
His standout movies include: Predators (2010); Lincoln, Django Unchained (both 2012); The Hateful Eight (2015); Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Tomb Raider, and Ant-Man and the Wasp (all 2018).
Goggins was already a distinctive talent, with a penchant for characters that often defy straightforward categorization, and he has now added another memorable figure to his eclectic repertoire of roles, playing The Ghoul ‘Cooper Howard’ in Amazon Prime’s highly anticipated TV version of the computer game ‘Fallout’.
Becoming a ghoul
Cooper Howard is a hard-bitten, yet quick-witted character who was alive before the Great War and is now over 200 years old. He was an actor before the nuclear holocaust (in fact, he was the face of the Vault-Tec nuclear vault company) and a family man, but lost everything when the bombs fell.
In the post-War, he is a bounty hunter, who does have a code of honor, but is also ruthless.
Check out The Ghoul at 1:26 and more from 1:58 in this trailer.
As a Ghoul, one of Cooper Howard’s most striking features is his lack of nose, giving him a skull like appearance. According to the Fallout fan wiki that’s due to “intense and prolonged radiation ravaging their skin, much of their flesh, and in some cases many of their ligaments”.
To create the Ghoul look, Goggins had to go through a five hour make-up and prosthetics session. “I have so much gratitude for my nose,” Goggins said to Seth Meyers in relation to the part. “You wake up in the morning, you go, oh, I love you, you’re so beautiful.”
Walton Goggins playing Cooper Howard in Fallout
Walton Goggins’ sly, mesmerising smile and ability to bring to life layered, deeply flawed, characters meant he was an easy choice for The Ghoul, a man, or rather a former man, who is both hardened and humorous, someone who has seen the very worst of existence on planet earth and still manages to crack a joke.
What’s interesting is that The Ghoul, Cooper Howard, doesn’t exist as such in the game. As noted by its creators, the TV series is a new storyline in the Fallout world, with many similarities and locations to the game, but with new characters and a new story arc.
Walton Goggins private life
Aside from his acting prowess, Goggins is a man of many interests, including photography, which he notably pursued during a sabbatical in India, and humanitarian work, aligning with various nonprofit organizations.
His first wife, Leanne Kahn, who he married in 2001, tragically died in 2004. He married filmmaker Nadia Conners in 2011. They have a son.
