‘Fallout’ Star Aaron Moten Leverages Personal Experiences, Shakespeare To Embody Maximus

Aaron Moten is one of the stars of Amazon Prime’s Fallout, the hit television series based on the incredibly popular series of video games. In the series, survivors of the Great War of 2077 – a nuclear war between the US and China – have fled to underground vaults to survive the extensive nuclear fallout. The action of the series takes place 200 years after the war where Lucy (Ella Purnell) leaves Vault 33 to find her missing father in the Los Angeles wasteland. Moten plays Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel who eventually helps Lucy on her quest.

Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Aaron Moten digs into his character’s motivations. He reveals that he found the core of his character through both his own motivations within a nuclear apocalypse as well as from a Shakespeare play. Then, he gives us insight into how he wears armor for the show and how that impacts his performance. Finally, he offers how many possibilities are now open for Maximus’s character in the future and how he now has new freedom to talk about them.

Awards Daily: Are you a gamer and how familiar were you with Fallout as a game?

Aaron Moten: I wouldn’t call myself a gamer, but I game occasionally, it’s a better use of my time for entertainment than television or film which can feel like work for me. Because I spend a lot of time thinking about the shot selection and editing and performances so it is hard for me to immerse myself. I was aware of Fallout but when I had the opportunity to play it I was playing other things. I had friends saying you should try Fallout and I always thought well maybe. Now the universe has flipped itself and here I am in the live action version of the game and getting my deep dive that way.

Awards Daily: I read in another interview that you based part of Maximus’s character on Cassius from the play Julius Caesar. What did you see in that character that helped you with Maximus?

Aaron Moten: It was a character description that exists in that play of Cassius where his ambition is described like a hungry dog. I think ambition like a hungry dog felt like such an engaging intensity for Maximus. he is a person who is really trying to discover himself and what he wants in the world. Whatever it is he’s after he is very starved for it. Because those are the first questions that you are asking yourself in playing him. What would it be like to have been born in the world after the world has ended. I liked that image of a hungry dog.

Awards Daily: A lot of Maximus’s character growth is based on his tragic childhood in the sense that he is searching for a home be it with the Brotherhood of Steel, Vault 4, and even being around Lucy. How did you get into that mindset?

Aaron Moten: It was something I found very realistic, forbidding that we find ourselves in these kinds of circumstances but I would not want to be alone after the apocalypse. I found a connection to him through that. I would not want to be alone, I think it might be why he misplaces his trust in people. With Thaddeus they have an antagonistic relationship but after a positive experience Maximus is willing to share his secret, hoping to make a connection despite what the world is continuing to make him think. By the time we make it to the finale he has another blow of abandonment. We have these amazing writers we work with who are continuing to develop these characters and subvert ideas so it is exciting as an actor that you are always going to be changing.

Awards Daily: You brought up the finale and the look on his face when he discovers the truth about what happened to his town. The intensity of that moment and then afterwards like you mentioned that sense of abandonment and then him being called a hero and not wanting that in that moment. How did you get so much of that emotion through your face in those moments?

Aaron Moten: I just always believe that you throw your work out when you show up on the day. Because it’s an amazing collaboration on this show, 200 people showed up to work that day to get that moment to work, and I think we should always approach it with the mindset that we will get there. Because you never know what’s going to happen. it could be the heat we had to deal with in filming some of our outdoor shots. It is about being alive and being open to what is happening in the room at the moment so it can be something realistic for the camera. I think we can always tell when an actor shows up thinking this is my big scene even on set you can sense that. it is more interesting to not let yourself be in a controlled room forcing something to happen.

Whatever analogy you want to use for what the work is, I often think about making bruises on yourself, every time you’re reading the script. Maximus fears weakness, his life is survival and to be perceived as weak is a very hurtful thing for him and is a bruise for him. Even when a situation is terrifying for him he is quite brave. Yet in that moment at the end there is no weakness but his optimism is obliterated and to be now in a life that you were thinking about leaving that he at first really wanted when we started the season and is now trapped in.

Awards Daily: Maximus’s connection with Lucy is one of the major character moments for him in the show. Their relationship where they help each other with her learning how to survive through him and he gains that sense of optimism that there could be something good in the world. How did you and Ella Purnell work to create that dynamic?

Aaron Moten: Two different perspectives on screen at the same time create conflict. So something Lucy finds interesting Maximus will find it the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen. So having these dueling complex perspectives on screen at the same time it is like life begins. Take the bridge scene where they run into two strangers and Maximus immediately senses the extreme danger, thinking that out in the Wasteland how difficult it would be to outrun these people. He can immediately assess the danger and Lucy in those moments trying to calm everyone down because the other three people in that moment are getting tense. Things like that were really important so we are sharing the different perspectives of that experience. One of my favorite lines in the show was “Neither are we.” It comes out of the circumstances to scream that to try to intimidate someone even though it’s saying we don’t have any guns.

Awards Daily: On a more technical level how did they make it look like you were in that armor?

Aaron Moten: There were four different aspects of the armor that existed, they are all practical things except for one of them which is the visuals inside the helmet. That is a very long 80 mm lens I think directly at my face. Jonathan Nolan was extremely helpful in doing that because he wanted to do something new. We all know the Iron Man inside the helmet exists and we wanted to have our own version for this project. It ended up being a c-stand with a little ballpoint on the back of my head so I understood how little I could move so I could always keep my head in the same place. We also have the full suit that is worn by Adam Shippey, our stunt performer. He is 6’5 and he’s 7’2 when he’s in the suit with the stilts and it weighs about 110 lb. Another version is me wearing the top half where the arms are so long that the knuckles are dragging if I’m not holding the arms up properly. You can look like a strange metal gorilla. Then I also have the motorized helmet that can open and that is about 50-60 lb total. Then we have the clam shell, which is a statuesque version of the suit where the back opens that you can step in and close around you. We use that for certain scenes like when Maximus is stuck in the suit and trapped.

There are so many different elements that Jonathan has orchestrated together to make the suit come to life as it does. Plus the amazing performance we have in Adam who plays so many different people in the suit. So it was very fun to develop the relationship that I have with him now because we spent so many days together talking about how Maximus would do this. Jonathan asked me to be at every shoot day with the suit which I would have done anyway because it’s very strange to allow someone else to be you and you not being there. I would walk rehearsals and Adam would watch and then we would have our own private conversations about the interesting things I would see in the tasks at hand. Then we would also do fun things and really play around with the other actors to give them different options for the edit but also to keep our guest actors on their toes.

Awards Daily: So with where we have left Maximus where do you think he goes from here? Or is that something you don’t try to speculate on?

Aaron Moten: It is hard to speculate because of the nature of our show. I think what is interesting that I see is I think we found success for Maximus in terms of anything is possible at this point. I think we’ve seen glimpses of Maximus and the potential in him including the negative side of that potential as well. I kept making a joke about this but who is looking out for Maximus? Here is this abandoned young man who is often struggling and doesn’t have that connection to let him know that everything is okay, or bounces ideas off, or tells him that’s a little crazy and maybe that’s not what’s happening here. I think there is a nice question that’s going to be addressed in season 2 as to this particular chapter of the Brotherhood and what’s going on with them in the rest of the Brotherhood chapters.

I think we all know that Maximus has gotten a taste from Lucy of a different moral compass and a different way to live and treat people. I think it’s going to be an interesting journey or is it going to take him into a darker, more violent existence that he is not able to recover from by the time he is reunited with Lucy. Or is he going to break free of the prison that he is now in and try to make a life. The big thing that separates the protagonists and antagonists of our first season was knowledge or awareness of what was going on, what was in that head, and what we are doing now. Now the Brotherhood has cold fusion and will now figure out what that means for them having that and what they will do with that power. I think it’s going to be an opportunity for the characters to make choices for themselves as opposed to other people.

Awards Daily: Final thoughts?

Aaron Moten: I really like your questions. It’s nice to be in a place where we get to talk about the show. A lot of our interviews have been press junkets where we’re not allowed to talk about the show in detail so we don’t ruin the surprises that are coming for people. But it’s nice to be able to talk like this.