Here's the cast of Amazon's 'Fallout' and the shows and movies where you've probably seen the actors before
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- Amazon's "Fallout" is based on Bethesda Softworks' post-apocalyptic video game series.
- It takes place in an alternate world, where nuclear technology is used for everything.
- The cast include actors from "Yellowjackets" and "The Hateful Eight."
The "Fallout" video games have gripped players since the late '90s and the franchise is finally getting the live-action treatment from Amazon. The show starts streaming on Prime Video on April 12, and fleshes out the post-apocalyptic wasteland from the games.
Bethesda Softworks bought the franchise from Interplay in 2007 for $5.75 million, and the four games it has published since then have sold 45.4 million copies in total.
The most recent entry, "Fallout 76," pushed the single-player franchise online. Per Bethesda Softworks, since 2018, 17 million players have explored the multiplayer game, which the studio has frequently updated with new storylines, missions, and loot.
The franchise imagines a world inspired by 1950s futurism where society relies on technology that is more advanced than our own, from chunky wearable computers, to floating robots, and giant suits of armor. But all that technology didn't stop a nuclear war from breaking out.
Some people survived the apocalypse thanks to huge underground bunkers, called Vaults, which were built by a nefarious company called Vault-Tec.
When the "Fallout" TV series kicks off, one of these Vault Dwellers leaves the safety of the bunker to find her father.
Here's who's in the cast of "Fallout."
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"Fallout" mainly follows Lucy MacLean, a vault dweller born and raised in Vault 33 after the apocalypse, played by Ella Purnell.
Purnell previously played Jackie, a high school soccer team player who survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness, in "Yellowjackets."
She also appeared opposite Dave Bautista and Hiroyuki Sanada in Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead" as Kate Ward.
In "Fallout," Lucy has spent her entire life inside Vault 33 with her father and brother. She has an idealistic view of the world because she was educated by the company behind the underground bunker, Vault-Tec.
So, she's forced to adapt quickly when she leaves the safety of the Vault to find her father in the outside world.
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During Lucy's quest to find her missing father, she crosses paths with an irradiated bounty hunter called The Ghoul, and actor Walton Goggins is the star under all that makeup.
He previously played career criminal Boyd Crowder in "Justified," as well as Captain Mannix in Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight."
As players of the games will know, most ghouls are creatures who were once human but have been turned into mindless creatures by exposure to radiation. But The Ghoul has retained his humanity and has been alive for hundreds of years by the time "Fallout" starts.
Goggins' character used to be a normal man called Cooper Howard, and he shows up in a Vault-Tec commercial in the trailer.
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The third protagonist of the series is Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, played by Aaron Moten. The star played Ben in the Fox TV series "Next," as well as Petey in HBO's "The Night Of."
Maximus was raised in the wasteland but adopted by the militaristic Brotherhood of Steel when he was a child. When "Fallout" starts, he's a squire who serves one of the knights in the hulking suits of Power Armor that are synonymous with the franchise.
In Vanity Fair's lengthy first-look at the series, executive producer Jonathan Nolan said that Maximus' role in the Brotherhood of Steel was inspired by medieval legends.
"This is a drawing on the classic Arthurian Knight legends where life was cheap, and you had a squire as long as they were useful," he explained. "They had to prove their worth, they had to prove their valor and their strength, and if they didn't, they were kind of cast aside."
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Lucy's journey in "Fallout" revolves around finding her father, Hank MacLean, after he goes missing from Vault 33.
He's played by Kyle MacLachlan, who fans might recognize as Agent Dale Cooper from David Lynch's "Twin Peaks," as well as The Captain in "How I Met Your Mother," and villain Calvin Johnson in "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Hank is the Overseer of Vault 33, and he's respected among the vault dwellers, which is why Lucy bravely decides to leave the safety of Vault 33 to find him.
Fans of the "Fallout" games will know that aside from saving some of the population, Vault-Tec used the vaults to experiment on their inhabitants. So it'll be interesting to see whether Hank has also been tasked with experimenting on the people he's in charge of.
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The wasteland is filled with colorful characters, some more mysterious than others. One of those intriguing individuals is Wilzig, played by Michael Emerson. Little is known about the character, but the Vanity Fair feature describes him as an "enigmatic researcher."
Wilzig may be a Vault-Tec employee or a member of the sinister Enclave, which experiments with radiation in the games. He can briefly be seen in the trailer warning Lucy about the dangers of post-apocalyptic America.
Emerson is best known for his role as the scheming villain-turned-ally, Benjamin Linus, in "Lost." He also played genius billionaire scientist Harold Finch in "Person of Interest."