Concerns about nuclear proliferation are having a moment! Woo? Between real-life concerns for geopolitics, recent apocalyptic fiction, and Oppenheimer, the bomb is at the forefront of the pop-culture brain. Could be a bummer, but according to Jonathan Nolan, it doesn’t have to be. “Last year, there were a couple of moments when we felt like we accidentally made Barbenheimer: The Show,†Nolan said on the Fallout red carpet. Fallout has the nuclear fears of Jonathan’s big bro Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer mixed with the mid-century design and skepticism toward modernity of Barbie. “I think there are just these moments in history when people think, Oh, those were the good old days,†said executive producer Lisa Joy, “even though there was plenty wrong with those good old days, and even if you never actually lived through those good old days.â€
Living in a postnuclear apocalypse impacted Fallout’s actors as well, way after filming wrapped. “It’s been almost two years since we started shooting. The state of the world seems to be in a constant state of flux,†said Dave Register, who plays vault-dweller Chet. “Obviously, nobody wants to think about the realities of nuclear war and proliferation, but there’s certain aspects of the show that feel eerily prescient.†No one wants to think about it because, for a brief period of time, it felt far away. “It was nice to live in a 20-year period in which you could pretend that it wasn’t an issue,†Nolan said. “But it’s more of an issue than it ever has been.â€