Fallout: Season 2 explores the backstory of how movie star and Vault-Tec pitchman Cooper Howard (played by Walton Goggins) went to Las Vegas before the war and met the man who he later tells Lucy MacLean was the main cause of the end of the world: Robert House.
As seen in the trailer, House recognizes the darkness lurking within Coop that will one day consume him as The Ghoul. House deems Coop “actually quite a violent man” who would do anything to protect his family. “You just don’t want to kill me … yet.” It seems then that the first steps of Coop’s tragic transformation into The Ghoul begins with his interactions with Mr. House.
Fans first saw Mr. House in live-action in Season 1 of the hit Prime Video series where the tech magnate was played by actor Rafi Silver. The Leftovers star Justin Theroux takes over the role for the show’s second season, lending the RobCo Industries founder a more urbane gravitas than the character we met in the first season.
I recently chatted with Justin Theroux over Zoom about Fallout: Season 2, his particular interpretation of Robert House, and the choices he made in bringing this iconic video game character to life. (Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity.)
IGN: What was that initial conversation and the big hook for you to want to do Fallout?
Justin Theroux: I've been friends with Walton for a long time and he was kind of the one that they deputized to give me the part. So he called me and just was like, "Hey, I think we're going to offer you this part and I'd really love for you to do it." And he told me a little bit about it, which I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about." Meaning it was so dense, what he was describing. But the real desire to want to do it came once I started talking to Jonah and Geneva and Graham and wrapping my arms around what the character was, what he was like. And that all these delicious scenes between me and Walton were going to take place, which was really just so exciting.
And then just my own little tick list of rules for what it takes for me to want to do a character were all sort of ticked, interesting, has a beginning, middle and an end. I guess ostensibly he's a villain, but I don't really think of him that way. But it was just the opportunity to play a genius. It's like playing Sherlock Holmes or Mycroft Holmes or playing those kinds of characters that are admittedly far brighter than I am in this part of the world or in this genre are really fun characters to play. And then really just each little scene that me and Walton had was this delicious little one act that we would get to play, and it was just really fun days at work.
IGN: I want to press you on you say you don't really think of him as a villain. Who is Robert House then, in your estimation, and what is his worldview maybe?
Justin Theroux: I mean, I think you could draw comparisons to all kinds of people, current billionaires as to what their worldview is. And I think I can also step out of me loving the character enough to know that he is, of course, a villain. But villains, of course, all villains don't think they're villains. They think they're incredible people that are trying to save humanity and the world, but their wires got crossed somewhere. I mean, even the Unabomber thought that he was a patriot. And I think there's a little bit of that in House in that he's trying to socially engineer the end of the world.
And he thinks that what he's probably doing is good for humanity writ large, to shake the Etch A Sketch and start the world over again. And obviously, we as an audience, have the opportunity to see what the shaking of that Etch A Sketch does. But I think he's an idealist, a broken one. And I think whatever it is, he's certainly on some spectrum of just thinking that he's being helpful. And he's in that incredibly weird era of having so much money and so much power that he gets to treat the world as his play thing. And again, I'll let you draw your own comparisons as to who those people could be in our current world.
IGN: Obviously, it's no secret that Howard Hughes is a big influence there. I know the character in the game has a similar voice, but I wanted to talk to you about coming up with the voice for House. I know you played him recently [in White House Plumbers], but I did hear a little bit of the cadence of the real world G. Gordon Liddy.
Justin Theroux: Yeah, Liddy was a little more comical, I guess, or blue collar or something, and was a little more put on. Liddy himself, I think, studied language in order to place himself in that sort of tax bracket. But it's not a wrong comparison. I thought House would have a similar kind of affect where the minute you hear his voice, he's put himself above you so that he wants to establish – and that was just as an actor wanting to work on the character – I wanted to establish a voice that – and it's done so beautifully in the first scene, because of course I'm playing opposite this working class Joe. So the minute you hear House pipe up, you know that a different air has entered the room. And I really like that because it makes whoever he's talking to seem small in a cruel way.
IGN: That's a really interesting way to view it. It's just another weapon in his arsenal, really.
Justin Theroux: Yeah, and I've known people like that. It's like when you talk to someone with a high RP English accent, you immediately feel like, "Oh, I don't deserve to be here because royalty apparently is here."
IGN: In the game, House's thing is he wants to live forever, which to me that suggests somebody – I wouldn't want to outlive all the people that I love – that kind of suggests maybe Robert House doesn't love anybody or nobody loves him.
Justin Theroux: I don't see as someone who looks at photos of his grandchildren and gets a tear in his eye, I don't think he's that kind of guy. I think it's a much more megalomaniacal, ego-driven thing to want to live forever. And interestingly, in the game, he doesn't really want to preserve his body, he really wants to preserve his ideas and his mind. And everyone in the world wants to have some sort of a legacy, but I think his certainly doesn't involve children or that kind of thing. And I think the buck wants to stop with him, wants to be pulling the strings. I mean, it's the whole thing of living forever. It's like, I don't want to live forever if my brain falls apart. You know what I mean? Or if my bodily functions fall apart, I think I'll be ready to go. But he, interestingly, just preserves his ideology.
IGN: Did you delve into the game at all when you got the role?
Justin Theroux: Yeah, I watched a little bit of gameplay specific to New Vegas online. And then I remember playing the first one when it came out a long time ago, but I really had to use the scripts as my touchstone for everything that was going to happen. Watching the gameplay wasn't as helpful as you might think. It was helpful just to understand the world and intellectually get it, but the actor who played him in the game [René Auberjonois] did a wonderful job and was so specific and good.
And I certainly didn't want to do an impersonation of that because I thought that would just feel almost a disservice to the work that that actor had done. And this was also in New Vegas or season two, it was the first time we were really seeing him not on a screen, flesh and blood. So I knew he had to have a physicality to him and all that work had to happen away from the game. I had to figure out a way to carry myself, yeah.
Fallout: Season 2 launches on Prime Video on December 17.
For more coverage, find out when fans can expect Fallout: Season 3 to begin filming, why Walton Goggins isn’t interested in playing the Fallout games, and why Fallout Season 2 takes the 'fog of war approach' to avoid making any New Vegas ending canon.
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