Dads can’t be cool, can they?
If the answer to the above rhetorical question is “yes,” there may be no cooler dad out there than Fallout star Walton Goggins, who has had one of the best years of anyone in Hollywood. On top of the Prime Video series returning for its second season, Goggins wrapped up the Emmy-nominated final season of The Righteous Gemstones and starred in Season 3 of Mike White’s The White Lotus. Great year, indeed.
Earlier this year, Goggins told DECIDER that his wife, Nadia, and their son, Augustus, were mourning Gemstones coming to an end, as Baby Billy is one of their favorite characters he has played. So, where does Cooper Howard/The Ghoul rank with Nadia and Augustus? High, says Goggins, even if one of them won’t say it out loud.
“Well, my son won’t admit that he likes them because he’s just — he’s at a very tender age where, you know, he can’t admit too much,” said the actor with a laugh, adding that even though Gus can’t own up to it, “He benefits from it greatly at school.”
What’s more, Goggins told DECIDER in the interview for Fallout Season 2 that his 14-year-old son has kids at school who talk to him about his dad’s role in the video game adaptation, which he tries to shut down immediately.
“‘Your dad’s The Ghoul, man,’” the Emmy-nominee said of what Augustus’ fellow students say, to which Gus responds, “‘Stop saying that.’”
As for his wife — who directed 2024’s The Uninvited, which starred Goggins, Pedro Pascal, Elizabeth Reaser, and more — the actor shared that she loves “both” Cooper and The Ghoul, but still has an affinity for Baby Billy. At the time of The Righteous Gemstones’ finale, he said that part of his sorrow in saying goodbye to the HBO comedy after four seasons and more than half a decade came from the joy it brought everyone in his family.
“I would do Baby Billy for my wife and my son all the time. I’d just walk around the house with these new scripts because they were so funny to me,” Goggins said.
He added, “My wife and my son love Baby Billy as much as I do. I would base my success on their reaction. It was so much fun and they loved it because it was never planned and it would just kind of happen. And I’m not going to get to do that anymore.”
Hopefully, they’re still finding something to laugh at in Fallout Season 2, at least until Danny McBride decides to reboot The Righteous Gemstones. Until then, the first two episodes of Fallout Season 2 are now streaming. The entire first season can be streamed on Prime Video.