“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.
I think you are the one missing the point. Why would you care about him playing the game? He’s not there to ensure accuracy to the source material, that’s the writer’s job.
Actors can do research on their roles in order to ensure that they get what they’re supposed to do right. Goggins not needing to do research is good for him, but him saying “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.” is missing the point, playing the game in this situation isn’t about “being an avatar”, but getting to experience the world and other characters where his character exists in, even if not as Cooper/Ghoul.
It’s not just the writers job, it’s the directors job.
How should the ghoul react to a cazador?
As a player of the games, I have a visceral reaction. Has the ghoul’s backstreet included environments where he would have encountered them? Spoken to people who have?
These are the kinds of questions I expect he’d need to be answered by the director, because i don’t think the writers would have that much detail in the scripts. “Scared because one fucked you up once” and “scared because someone you thought was tough told you they got fucked up by one” are two different scareds.
If you trust the director, it might be easier to let them tell you what your character knows when you the actor need to know.
If you don’t trust the director, then it might make sense to peek at the source materials. You better understand the environment, but now suddenly you know things your character might not, which I imagine adds additional burden on an actor. A common burden, mind you, but additional.
And the source material is inconsistent at best.