The Boys Season 3 Villains On Redemption, Deep Voices, And Shifting Allegiances [Exclusive]
"The Boys" is one of the best TV satires in recent years. A superhero show with biting social commentary and wrapped up in tons of depravity, gore, and nudity, it's equal parts hilarious and poignant — and it's only getting better as time goes on.
One thing that makes the show stand out from other superhero adaptations is the care and nuance it gives its villains. They are all despicable, but fleshed out and with enough personality to feel distinct from one another.
This season sees The Deep get a bigger role after being kicked around a lot last season. There is also Victoria Neuman, a seemingly good person leading the fight against rogue supes who turned out to be a big super-powered killer. And lastly, there's this season's new big bad, Jensen Ackles' hotly anticipated Soldier Boy, possibly the only person capable of defeating Homelander.
/Film spoke with actors Jensen Ackles, Chace Crawford, and Claudia Doumit about why it's good being bad.
An old-timey supervillain
The big news coming into this season was that "The Boys" was going to introduce Soldier Boy, who, in the comics, is a clear parody of Captain America. In the show, he is reimagined as the very first superhero, a man who fought in WWII and is just as bigoted and racist as you'd imagine a WWII veteran with superpowers would be.
The character also gives fans of Jensen Ackles a different side of the actor than what we've seen before, with a deeper voice and different poise than his more recent roles. According to Ackles, he wanted to channel the mannerisms and voice of actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
"I kind of went back to, not anyone specifically, or any actor, any character specifically, but some of those old movies and those old movie stars from the '40s, the '50s and stuff, and just how they carried themselves, how they spoke, it was a different ... it had a different cadence to it. I just tried to do something a little different than, I think, what we're normally used to hearing, just to give him a little slight variation."
Is redemption off the table?
When it comes to The Deep, this season sees his return to the spotlight after he managed to escape the Scientology-like Church of the Collective and enjoying great success from his tell-all book. But is that enough to set The Deep on a path of redemption after all he's done? Don't count on it, says Chace Crawford.
"I don't know if he could ever be, like, fully redeemed. I think me and [showrunner Eric] Kripke have talked about that before, but they are putting him through the wringer, though. It's always fun because there's the Boys and the superheroes and The Deep on his own little like storyline. Especially season 2, he was off on his own boat, but it's great. It's a lot of fun. It's, obviously, the type of show we're doing. Again, the more absurd it is, the more nuanced and real you make it, like, "He really is in a relationship with this secret." It's really funny and I love it. It's right up my alley, my sense of humor, and I'm like, "Yes, I also know that guy, too."
A duplicitous character
Lastly, season 2 ended with the reveal that Victoria Neuman, a congresswoman and open critic of Vought, is actually a superhero who has killed a ton of people. Though we've met several heroes before, from Stormfront and Homelander to The Deep and Edgar, Neuman is the first character we've met who doesn't have a clear allegiance to anyone. For actor Claudia Doumit, that was the most appealing part of playing the character.
"It's wildly interesting, actually. It's endlessly fascinating to play Victoria Neuman because she is quite a duplicitous character and she plays both lines of the Boys and the suits and she's kind of in her own lane. But it's really interesting because I get to play her different with each character because she's a woman of many faces. The way that she interacts with Hughie is vastly different to how she interacts with Homelander or Starlight. She puts on the face that she thinks that will get her ahead in that conversation. It's actually really fun. I'm playing numerous people. [laughs] It's really fun."
"The Boys" season 3 is streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes every Friday.