Season 3 of Prime Video’s hit series The Boys is in full swing, with the titular crew still determined to take down Vought International, including the unstable superhero, Homelander. As the season picks up, Hughie (Jack Quaid) is working with Director Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) at the Bureau of Superhuman Affairs to regulate Supe activity, along with the help of Butcher (Karl Urban) and his team. Meanwhile, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is trying to play nice with Homelander (Antony Starr), whose public image has taken a hit thanks to his association with former Nazi, Stormfront (Aya Cash).
Toeing the Line Between Good and Evil
To level the playing field in the battle with Vought and the Seven, Butcher resorts to taking V24, a new variation of Compound V that gives the user superpowers for twenty-four hours. While this seemingly goes against everything that Butcher has been fighting for, Urban feels that the character is more than justified in doing so. “For me, Butcher’s main motivation to take it was the fact that he could feel that the noose was tightening around the security of Ryan and that he felt that was only a matter of time before homeland would find him,” says Urban. “I think that's the justification that Bucher used in his mind, but probably also a heavy dose of the fact that Butcher was frustrated with the status quo. The fact that there was no traction in the war to bring down the Seven. So, out of that frustration came this unlikely agreement with Homelander that they were going to advance their mutual desire to destroy each other.”
Butchers’ newfound powers, along with his rather grizzly misdemeanor, result in some rather unscrupulous behavior, though executive producer Eric Kripke is hesitant to call it villainous. “I think everybody is the hero of their own story,” says Kripke. “I think one of the core rules of the show is that no one wakes up and looks in the mirror and says, ‘I'm going to be evil today.’ So, everyone fervently believes they're doing the right thing. I wouldn't know how to write Butcher if he really thought he was being bad on purpose. He's just a very angry man and he has a lot of issues. It would be a much less interesting show, but he should just be in therapy for months and months. Even though he does terrible things, there's a spark in him that's really good and wants to do the right thing. It's just he rarely, he rarely actually decides to do it.”
“I think one of the wonderful aspects about the writing of the show is that all of these characters, no matter how heinous their actions at times, are imbued with these wonderful flaws,” adds Urban. “In doing so, it humanizes them, and while an audience can’t condone the character’s actions, they can empathize with them. It’s written in a way that you perhaps of you recognize some aspects about yourself or somebody you know and gives the characters a lot more dimension. It's not just black and white. It's shades of grey.”
For Urban, it wouldn’t take unbridled superpowers to turn him to the dark side, but rather apathy. “I think for me, it would be probably the danger of becoming complacent and lacking that and that drive to really push yourself as it's absolutely as hard as you can,” he says. “If you look at the career of some artists through their lives, quite often you'll see this period early on in their career when they're struggling and hungry. And then they sort of get to this point where they finally get everything they want, and then all of the sudden, much of the essence that made them brilliant, evaporates.”
Delving Into Depravity
One of the more anticipated moments of season 3 is Herogasm, the annual superhero orgy that was the basis of The Boys spin-off comic of the same name. However, adapting it for the small screen was no small task. “Herogasm was a fucking logistical nightmare,” says Eripke. “When you think about dozens of completely naked people simulating sex acts during COVID, and the risk of someone being unprofessional or inappropriate. It’s scary to me. I held my breath the entire time. There are multiple intimacy coordinators, there's multiple COVID officers, there's multiple supervisors. I kept saying, ‘We have to lock this down tighter than we've ever locked down anything before in terms of it being professional and safe.’ There are people everywhere and they're all pretending to have sex, so as a producer, we need a safe, non-toxic set where everyone feels welcome. That's a really terrifying thing to try to pull off. It's challenging because it's important that the set be a happy, safe space.”
Kripke gives credit to Jack Quaid for being the most willing to be open to some of the more outrageous moments on the show. “I will give a certain prize to Jack for the amount of nudity that guy is rocking in season three without complaining,” says Eripke. “Yeah, it's like, ‘Oh another entire scene with my ass hanging out?’ Initially, you could see that it was something that he was quite uncomfortable with, but full credit to Jack, because actually put the work in he showed up in terrific shape. Once he got over the initial awkwardness of it, he actually quite embraced it.” Urban, however, has a different choice. “Chase is pretty open to doing some pretty wild shit,” he adds.
Getting Into Character
Working so closely together has resulted in the cast developing strong friendships off-screen, and while one might think that those friendships might be a hindrance while portraying characters that are at odds with one another, the opposite is true, particularly when it comes to Homelander and Starlight. “These two characters are basically the opposite ends of the polarities, says Starr. “The good girl and the not-so-good boy. Every other character falls somewhere within these two on that spectrum. So, to put these two on a collision course, you're going to have some very intense moments, and you're going to have some really difficult, emotional territory to navigate. So, any off-screen friendship lends itself to an ease on the day, especially because we work so fast. We've got that shorthand, but it's kind of the same with the whole group. Navigating those difficult scenes with a shorthand and an understanding of each other, and a respect makes things a lot more fluid and a lot easier.”
For Moriarty, the friendships allow for ease in the performances. “I find that, especially when we're doing these very complicated scenes, I'm in my comfort zone, because we are good friends, and the more comfortable you are, the more you're able to focus on the performance and tap into that and not be distracted by anything else,” she says. “So, you might think that a close friendship would not translate to a good antagonistic relationship on screen, but it totally works.”
At the heart of the antagonistic relationships is Homelander, whose mental and emotional imbalances are the source of much of the tension in the show. The character is constantly forced to subdue those imbalances on the surface to save face, though Starr enjoys that type of challenge in a performance. “One of the themes on the show is that everyone is wearing masks, and everyone is covering or hiding something,” he says. “Homelander is basically the weakest character in the show, so, he's constantly covering up the fact that he's actually incredibly vulnerable and ultimately weak, even though he's physically the strongest. And that’s a lot of fun. The good thing about this show is that we can do things that are big and overt, but when it's time to really concentrate things down, and move into tighter stuff, you know, we also get a lot of scope to add layers and nuances in there as well. So, it's kind of the best of the best of both worlds for me.”
As the series has progressed, the characters have become more extreme as they have come into their own. Moriarty cites the duality of her character as the key to keeping her grounded and relatable. “I have the benefit of playing Starlight and Annie at the same time. What I've loved about the Annie moments is that I'm in a t-shirt and jeans and sneakers, and while that might seem trivial, it's not because as soon as I put on that super suit, it’s an entryway into the character. I put it on, and I feel like Starlight, but when I'm Annie, I forget that I am a superhero because she just seems like a civilian. A lot of the issues that Annie is going through in terms of kind of seeking out her own identity and growing into her confidence are things that especially young women in their 20s can relate to. She just happens to be going through it under the circumstances of an extreme world of superheroes.”
Those circumstances have led to a growth in the character, particularly leading into season 3. “Obviously, she has to deal with, in a really quick manner, a harsh reality in season one, when we're first introduced to her and she gets chosen for the Seven,” says Moriarty. “She has a very abrupt harsh introduction to the reality of the world that she's just joined. She's idolized this world, but she finds out that it's the opposite of what she's believed it to be. So, she has to adapt very quickly and choose whether or not to participate in that world. I think that takes a long time for her to really come to terms with the fact that pretty much everything has been a lie, even her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her superpowers. I think this is the season where she finally decides what her place in this world is going to be, and with that comes a confidence and a clarity that we've not seen before. It was really satisfying to play because I feel like she's been inching towards that trajectory. I'm excited to see how that continues to play out and how she's able to act out of that newfound confidence and clarity.”
Playing Both Sides
While most of the characters on the show have personal agendas, no one agenda is more dubious than Victoria Neuman’s, which Claudia Doumit loves to explore. “It was such a fun character to undertake because she is someone who has such a duplicitous nature and she does wear many faces in the show, depending on which character she's interacting with,” she says. “So, as an actor, it was just kind of fun to dive into the nuance of how she talks to a person based on what she wants from them. So, that was just that's kind of fun to explore. Homelander’s desires and needs are going to be different than Starlight’s desires and needs and Huey’s desires and needs. Newman kind of caters her personality towards what is appropriate for the situation and what will get her ahead. It’s wrapped up in a very messy journey, as is everyone in the show. I admire her willingness to fight for her daughter. I feel like everything she's doing is very closely tied to the safety of her daughter, though it doesn't always go terribly well. She has great intentions.”
We continue to learn a little more about Victoria as time goes on, but Doumit is as much in the dark about her backstory as the audience is. “I'm given no information,” she says. “So, I'm actually so excited whenever I get a script because I get to dive deeper into her world. It’s endlessly fascinating every time I read a script. But I never get the full picture. I don't think any of us ever really get the full picture.”
Under the Sea
The Deep has had his share of problems over the first three seasons, though much of that stems from his search for his true identity. “I think he might be better off just living in the ocean, but he doesn't know that, laughs Crawford. “I connected with the character right away, the comedy of it. His only friends were like the lobster down by the local pier and he was picked on. He's always searching for validation, but the sea creatures are his true friends. It is an interesting thing to play. He desperately wants to hang on to his celebrity identity within the Seven, obviously. The backbone of his storyline in season 3 is loyalty tests and how far he will go. He has seen behind the curtain of losing it and ending up in Sandusky, Ohio, and having to eat a Dairy Queen every day, so, he's pretty desperate.”
Despite the Deep’s desperation and overzealous love for ocean life, Crawford has a real fondness for the character. “I really admire his ability and desire to overcome the stigma of therapy,” he says. “He likes to go to therapy. There is also something altruistic about him. He is trying to save some of the sea life. He really does care deeply about the ocean.”
Season 3 of The Boys is currently streaming on Prime Video.