Why Jensen Ackles Refused To Shoot One Scene For The Boys Season 3

There are quite a few monstrous characters in the Prime Video series "The Boys," but Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles, is certainly among the worst. He's a misogynistic, bigoted, deeply hateful man with anger issues and a whole lotta trauma, but he's also a lot of fun to watch. Ackles is fantastic, and season 3 gave him the spotlight to really show off his range and comedic prowess in a delightfully demented performance. It also reunited him with "Supernatural" showrunner Eric Kripke, who serves as showrunner on the satirical superhero series, but that proved to be a bit challenging for Ackles because Kripke knew he could really push the envelope.

"The Boys" is known for testing the boundaries of good taste (and often smashing them to pieces in the name of satire), and while making the third season, Kripke had one request for Ackles that went just a little too far. In interviews with Entertainment Weekly, the duo revealed that there was one scene that caused Ackles to really push back. While they didn't elaborate on exactly what caused Ackles to say no, another interview with Fangasm delved deeper, and Ackles divulged that he refused to get intimate with a much older woman on camera. 

Ackles and Kripke's retelling of the refusal is pretty magical, as Ackles apparently called Kripke after reading his scripts and explained that he simply "can't do this," feeling that it would reflect poorly on him as a family man. While the pair (who have worked together on several of Ackles' best projects) eventually came to a compromise, there are still plenty of things that Soldier Boy says and does that are plenty shocking, so Ackles having so much resistance to a specific scene is noteworthy. 

In season 3, episode 7, Soldier Boy is shown having a bit of sexual fun with women who are much older than Ackles but are technically Soldier Boy's age, since he was frozen. In the scene, Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Butcher (Karl Urban) interrupt things when they burst in with snacks, but Ackles told Fangasm that "We were supposed to be in a ... much more compromising position... when they walked in. But I was like, I don't think any of us are gonna be comfortable doing this." While we'll never know for sure if that's the exact thing that caused Ackles to call Kripke up and refuse, it seems pretty darn likely. While it could have been a lot worse, as Soldier Boy actually hooks up with Homelander (Antony Starr) in an abusive tryst in the comics, that was nixed due to the pair's extremely different relationship in the streaming series. 

It turns out that Ackles wasn't the first one to have issues with the love scene, however, as sitcom legend Paul Reiser, who starred as The Legend, was apparently originally supposed to be the one in the middle of getting busy with the older women. In an interview with TV Insider, Reiser explained that he refused to do the scene and they gave it to Ackles instead, and when he watched it he thought, "Oh, that really didn't seem like any trouble at all," but he was "happy to not be in the midst of that" all the same. It wasn't "any trouble" because Ackles had it toned down, but even then there's some pretty foul dialogue. Speaking with EW, Urban said that Ackles being nervous about the scene was a win for "The Boys," explaining: 

"When Jensen Ackles is making calls like, 'I don't know if I can do this,' that's when you know you're in the right place."

Thankfully Ackles wasn't so disturbed by it all that he won't return, and in season 5 he'll have his work cut out for him when Soldier Boy has just one main goal: revenge. Season 5 may be the end for "The Boys," but it looks like things are going to go out with a major bang. It can't come soon enough, and hopefully Kripke doesn't get too many more panicked phone calls.