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Tribeca Film Festival Exclusive: Cast Talks New Show ‘The Boys’

by The Knockturnal
by The Knockturnal 0 comments

The Boys, which will debut on July 26 on Amazon Prime, is an eight-episode fun and irreverent take on what happens when superheroes – who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as Gods – abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good.

It’s powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about The Seven, and Vought – the multi-billion dollar conglomerate that manages these superheroes and covers up all of their dirty secrets. Based on The New York Times best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, “The Boys” was developed by showrunner Eric Kripke who also serves as writer, executive producer and directed the season finale. Seth Rogen also developed the show.

The Boys are Hughie (Jack Quaid), Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon), and The Female (Karen Fukuhara).  Simon Pegg guest stars as Hughie’s father. The Supes of The Seven are led by Homelander (Antony Starr) who is joined by Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell). Academy Award® nominee Elisabeth Shue stars as Madelyn Stillwell, Vought’s Senior VP of Hero Management.

The Knockturnal: What attracted you to the project?

Elisabeth Shue: Well, the cast is incredible. The writing is amazing. Story is good, and I love my character.

The Knockturnal: Tell us a little bit about her.

Elisabeth Shue: She is the head of talent relations at Vought International. She’s in charge of all the seven most powerful superheroes in the world. And she enjoys her power very, very much.

The Knockturnal: I read that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg developed this. 

Elisabeth Shue: Well, I love Seth and Evan, they’re amazing. They’re so smart, and their sensibility, their subversive humor, is everywhere in the show.

The Knockturnal: There’s a lot of interest in superheroes. The Avengers is smashing records. Where do you think this show fits into all of that?

Elisabeth Shue: I would say it’s more along the lines of Deadpool if you have to have it in a genre. But I think what’s interesting about it is, is all the superhero movies all take place in their own fantasy land. This actually is right now, a superhero just flew by, just now. It’s just our reality, superheroes take care of the police, that they are in the military, and it’s just a reality. And they all like really corrupt celebrities.

The Knockturnal: There’s a lot of cool younger actors in this and up and coming talent. How was working with all of them?

Elisabeth Shue: Oh, amazing, amazing. There is not a bad actor in this bunch, and all really good people, which obviously matters more than if they’re good actors.

The Knockturnal: Tell us about your character.

Jessica Salgueiro: I play Hughie’s girlfriend on the show. I’m just a cool millennial New York chick. That’s all I’ll say.

The Knockturnal: What attracted you to this project?

Haley Joel Osment: The script. I mean, it’s from these incredible graphic novels. I have worked with Seth and Evan on Future Man for the past couple years, so I know the projects that they do and how wonderful it is to work on them. But yeah, I mean, just the story. Even this episode today, so much happens in the first hour of the show that throws everything into chaos. So I’m excited to see the reaction.

The Knockturnal: Obviously, there’s a massive interest in comic book movies and comic book superheroes right now. Where does this show fit in?

Haley Joel Osment: There’s been dark superhero stuff. I don’t think anything is is so extremely bleak and ruthless as this show. It really hits close to home, because I think we’re living in a time where everybody has lost confidence in all of our institutions, and this really drives the point home in a really truthful way, even though it’s in a fantasy world, yeah.

Jessica Salgueiro: It feels like it’s so timely, right now. I mean, this was written, I think, over a decade ago. But it’s so timely, right now, specifically. As a reader, and I’m sure as a viewer, it’s going to hit home in such an intense way.

The Knockturnal: Do you guys have upcoming projects you want to share?

Haley Joel Osment: Yeah, Future Man season two is on Hulu, and I’m actually here for another thing at Tribeca, Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile, which premieres on Thursday, and then comes out on Netflix on Friday.

The Knockturnal: How was working on that project?

Haley Joel Osment: It was fantastic. That was another thing I had to be under a curtain of secrecy with, but Zac is fantastic in it, Lily’s fantastic in it. It’s, again, a wonderful group of people to be promoting a project with. So I’m excited to see people’s reaction.

Jessica Salgueiro: I’m on another Amazon series called The Expanse, and the new season will be coming out this summer.

The Knockturnal: Tell us a little bit about your character. 

Jack Quaid: His name is Hughie Campbell. He is a naïve but good-natured, a little sheltered kid from Queens, who works in an electronic store, and his life gets thrust into these insane circumstances due to collateral damage from a superhero. And then he has to join this shadowy organization called The Boys, figure out a way to take them down. And it’s just been a complete wild ride, and I’ve just been so lucky, and I feel so lucky to inhabit this character and be in the show.

The Knockturnal: What made the experience of working on this show unique?

Jack Quaid: Well, I’ve never really done anything with superheroes before, and obviously I’ve always been a huge fan of superheroes. I remember growing up reading issues of various Marvel franchises. I remember I read Spider-Man, the original X-Men comics, all that stuff. It was really cool to get the role and then immediately start reading the comics, and researching, and trying to do my best by the comic book fans. That’s been such a cool part of acting, that I’m so lucky to have been able to do.

The Knockturnal: Did you have to work a lot with VFX?

Jack Quaid: Yes. That was great. I’ve had a little experience with visual effects. One of my first movies was The Hunger Games. Basically, the visual effects with that was to make it look like I could throw a spear well at all. But with this, it was a lot more in depth. What I loved about the show was it really kept these amazing character moments, despite all the bombastic stuff, and all the visual trickery. But we kept these really great character moments, and it’s character driven show. I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people, but in a really good way, while keeping all of the insane what-the-f** moments.

The Knockturnal: Tell us about your role in the show.

Laz Alonso: So I play Mother’s Milk. He is the second in command of The Boys. He basically was brought in to be the thinker of the group, the investigator, the logical cool-headed, calm-headed mind. But at the end of the day, he really ends up becoming the person that’s keeping the ship from completely sinking, or the train from running off the rails. And I love that because usually, I’m playing one of the crazy bad guys. And in this role, I got to play somebody who, despite being physically imposing, it’s his mind that’s his most dangerous weapon. And so, it goes against a lot of traditional Hollywood archetypes that you’re used to seeing.

The Knockturnal: How was working with this cast? 

Laz Alonso: Let me tell you something, this is like … Everybody will you this is their favorite job they’ve had. It’s rare when you have not only a great relationship with all your castmates, the creators, the producers, the studio, the people on set, the cast, the crew, everyone. And that it think reads on the screen, the fact that everybody is really enjoying what they’re doing and the journey that they’re on. You can work in a really creative environment when you love the people that you’re working with.

The Knockturnal: Are you a big comic book fan?

Laz Alonso: I wasn’t familiar with the comics before this. I did a deep dive once I got the job, and I was just reading every single book I could get my hands on. And it just helped give life to Mother’s Milk once I stepped on screen.

The Knockturnal: And what’s coming up next?

Laz Alonso: I have another show that will be coming out this May called L.A.’s Finest, with Gabriel Union, and Jessica Alba. It’s a good show. It’s fun. You remember Bad Boys, the movie? It’s a spinoff of that. And it has that same fun feel to it, where it’s a cop show, but it’s tongue in cheek. We’re poking fun at it. So it was a lot of fun to shoot that show, and they were amazing in it.

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