This interview contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2

With Fallout Season 2 wrapping up its second season on Prime Video on February 3, we caught up with Rafi Silver to talk about his role in the hit series. Based on the video game franchise, the show isn’t your typical television adaptation. Instead of simply retelling familiar storylines, it expands the universe with new layered narratives that deepen the world for players of the games. Silver steps into one of the season’s most intriguing roles, playing the body double of Mr. House, portrayed by Justin Theroux, a twist that adds some mystery and compelling complexity to the story.

Photography: Johnny LaVallee Photography
Grooming: Courtney Housner
Styling: Ananda Rose
White Suit: Denzil Patrick
PR: TFG PR

What did your preparation process look like as you got ready to portray this complex character?

Rafi: There’s so much source material, and so the way I’ve been preparing is just arming myself with as much understanding of the world, the universe. I have watched more YouTube videos than you can even imagine, playthrough of the game, dramaturgical information about who Robert House is, straight from the gyro accident with his parents, to where he went to college, and his brother, Anthony.

Rafi: I’ve learned all of that and it’s been fun because that’s actually what my character would do as well. He would study every single thing about him. I work at Columbia University, and so the head of voice and I worked on the voice together. We took René’s [Auberjonois] voice and we started working on the accent even though it’s not exactly that, we’re all different Robert Houses. So it’s been about diving into the source material.

It’s interesting that you mentioned the source material—when you’re working on an adaptation, what’s your mindset going in? Do you think about the fact that you’re joining something with an existing fan base?

Rafi: I love this particular project because it’s not remake of the video games in any way; it enhances it. And so I like to think of this show [in a way like when] you’re watching a movie like The Sixth Sense, and then you find out the twist at the end, you want to go back and rewatch it to find out. Or, you watch a show like Better Call Saul, and it’s a prequel to Breaking Bad, it then makes you want to watch Breaking Bad again with a different lens. This show does both those things. It’s a flash forward and a flashback. And so all that source material can be replayed through a different lens, specifically, in my case, New Vegas.

Rafi: So we’re learning all of this prequel history of who Robert House is. We see him live and in person, we see that he has a double, we see all of these incredible things that make you then go back and replay Vegas, and then we flash forward. So then it all informs the fans and gets them to go back and replay the game in a new way, which I think is such a cool thing for the video game world.

What discussions did you have about playing a character who’s revealed to be a body double of a character?

Rafi: There is a real fun that we got to play specifically with my character. When I initially found out about it, I actually quoted Justin [Theroux], unaware that he was playing the role, because Tropic Thunder is one of my favorite movies. I was like, “Oh, I’m a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.” And they were like, yep, that’s exactly right. And then I got to tell Justin that he’s like, you’re 1,000% right. So for me, the original dude is Rafi who gets to play a dude who’s disguised as Robert House.

Rafi: So the actual character that I am, I got to really explore that without dialogue, right when I step into that elevator with Cooper Howard, and it’s such a subtle moment, but it’s the first time, and probably the only time in this world, that you get to see the person who is the world-presenting Robert House drop the veil. Who is he? If he’s not him, then who is he? And that was a really fun thing to play with and talk about with the showrunners and everything.

What is it like being part of a production on such a large scale?

Rafi: I mean, we shot all of Fallout on film, so it already felt elevated in that way. Just to go back to season one, that scene around the table, we shot that one scene in 16 hours. It was a full day. They were really detail oriented and very intentional. So, the scope is enormous, but it’s not just the filmmaking. The sets that were built for this particular season were beyond my imagination. Like I said before, I watched hours and hours of YouTube videos, so stepping out of my trailer, I’m like, “I’m there.” It was exactly what I saw. Robert House’s Penthouse; it’s just like you’re there.

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Seasons one and two of Fallout are streaming on Prime Video.

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