As Fallout changed locations from one coast to the other for Season 2, the production was faced with the catastrophic California wildfires earlier this year.
While discussing the Prime Video show’s sophomore season, the cast and creators explained to Deadline how “a number of amazing people banded together” in the aftermath of the fires, which claimed 10 “really special” crew members’ homes.
“We hadn’t quite noticed how much production had left California because we were shooting California pretty steadily for the last 10 years,” noted co-creator Graham Wagner after the show relocated with a $25 million CA tax credit.
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“After the fires and so many of our crew members, I think it was 10, lost their homes in the fires while we were shooting, we [shut] down for a week or two, in order to kind of allow everyone to figure out,” he explained. “So many more crew members were displaced from their homes for some time, that we really started wrestling with in the aftermath of that, this larger question of how much production had left California. The fires really felt like one of these incipient moments where it’s going to go one way or the other, when you’re asking people to rebuild and the industry is not there for them anymore.”
One of several Los Angeles productions to temporarily shut down amid the fires, Fallout resumed filming at Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita after several wildfires burned through Southern California in January, which resulted in at least 31 deaths and upwards of $53.8 billion of property damage.
Wagner added, “It was a really scary moment and a number of amazing people sort of banded together at that point to try to figure out, coming out of the fires, how do we go about reversing the pattern which had been there since I moved to LA 20 years ago, 25 years ago, of more and more production leaving the state. And hopefully now with a revised and revamped tax credit program, we’re gonna be competitive again and we’re gonna see more and more production coming back to LA. So, we won’t be alone shooting the end of the world here.”
Co-creator Geneva Robertson-Dworet praised her partner, who has “done so much to bring production back here to LA and also California generally.”
Fallout star Aaron Moten, who plays Maximus, praised production designer/executive producer Howard Cummings and his “brilliant” team for making the best use of the show’s new locale.
“It just felt like he was flexing this year, really getting to create these amazing sets, some of which we only are on for like six or eight hours shooting. … It’s all these worlds that we get to create, that I know that the move was a good thing for the show in terms of where we were going this year,” said Moten.
Moten also acknowledged it was “a really rough year in California, when we filmed” as he reflected on the bittersweet experience filming in the Golden State.
“We had some really special people lose their homes, and at the same time, a lot of people don’t get the opportunity these days to work out of their home that they bought in California,” he added. “It felt like a nice homecoming for a lot of people, even though I was coming from Iceland. I moved from there to be out here.”
Walton Goggins, who reprises his role as The Ghoul/Cooper Howard, echoed the sentiment as he expressed “a lot of gratitude” to have a chance to film in California.
“To go to work on the very first day and to look out and see a crew this big all living in Los Angeles, and to know what that means for their family to work at home because this city has suffered greatly—aside from natural disasters, the loss of business in this state,” explained Goggins. “To be a part of this show and have this show be filmed here, it was, I think, emotional for a lot of people, and we were all grateful to the state of California for giving us the opportunity to work here, and I know Jonah and a lot of people worked hard to make that happen.”
Season 2 of Fallout, premiering Dec. 17 on Prime Video, follows Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) and The Ghoul as they venture to New Vegas to find her father Hank (Kyle McLachlan) and bring him to justice over his part in nuking Shady Sands. Meanwhile, Cooper hopes to find his wife and child.