Trivia / The Boys (2019)

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• Acting in the Dark: Claudia Doumit only discovered Victoria Neuman had Your Head A-Splode powers when she read the script with the bloody congressional hearing.
• Actor-Inspired Element: According to Eric Kripke, Ashley's line, "I Tinder'd my way through Barcelona. Everyone in that city ate MY paella", was a line Colby Minifie came up with. He considers it to be the best line of Season 2.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Haley Joel Osment plays Mesmer, a supe who is a Former Child Star.
  • Tomer Kapon, who plays Frenchie, has served in the Israeli military (most easily noticed when he handles guns, check that trigger discipline).
  • Black Noir having a lethal reaction to an Almond Joy was inspired by his actor Nathan Mitchell being similarly allergic to tree nuts.
  • Kimiko turns out to be Japanese (well, her first name was kind of a giveaway already to anyone familiar with Japanese names). Karen Fukuhara is Japanese-American, born to Japanese parents in California.
  • Elena, Maeve's ex-girlfriend, is Latina. Nicola Correia-Damude, who portrays her, is also Latina (Guyanese from her mother).
• Approval of God:
  • Garth Ennis has seen the show and is generally favorable, saying that he doesn't mind the different direction the show is taking from the source material.
  • An odd case of this mixed with Actually Pretty Funny: The Vought International Twitter account took a pretty blatant jab at Zack Snyder when it released the trailer for the In-Universe movie Dawn of the Seven by including #ReleaseTheBourkeCut, a reference to the famous #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement that led to Zack Snyder's Justice League. Snyder himself took the joke in stride, congratulated the movie's director, and stated his excitement to "see your vision realized", a phrase he used regarding the making of his movie.
  • Actress Leah Remini expressed flattery about being namechecked by fellow Church of Happyology survivor The Deep.
  • A flashback shows Soldier Boy covering Blondie's "Rapture" in a campy dad-like fashion. Debbie Harry herself loved it.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • Kimiko, unfortunately, fell into some overdone tropes regarding Asian women in the first season, being silent and acting as something of a Living Macguffin. The writers acknowledged this and made an effort to rectify it in Season 2, giving her a lot more agency, letting her communicate more, and giving her more to do with the plot.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub, done in El Salvador, was pretty infamous for its low quality and the fact most of the names of the characters were translated to Spanish, especially those without valid translations, like Homelander. Starting March 2023, the Salvadoran dub was replaced with a new one done in Mexico, and with a All-Star Cast to boot, and the names were reverted to their original English ones in the Mexican one.
• California Doubling: Filmed in Toronto, while mostly set in New York. Keen-eyed Canadians can see a few Canadian trademarks like in the pilot, a convenience store has "19+" stickers for tobacco and alcohol.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Erin Moriarty (Starlight) sings "Never Truly Vanish" in the season 2 premiere.
  • Laurie Holden (Crimson Countess) sings "America's Son" and "Chimps Don't Cry" in season 3.
  • Karen Fukuhara (Kimiko) also sings in a couple of Imagine Spots (one in season 2, the other in season 3), and shows off her talent - she was in an a capella group earlier in her career.
• Dawson Casting:
  • A particular example with Jensen Ackles who portrays Soldier Boy, involving a bit of Fridge Logic. Soldier Boy is an immortal man who is a century old, played by the then forty-three-year-old Jensen Ackles, but on the show, Soldier Boy became The Ageless when he was 25 years old (as his file says he was born in 1919). So despite being over a century old, Soldier Boy is supposed to have kept the appearance of a man in his mid-twenties but is being played by an actor in his early forties.
  • It's not something you'd notice if you didn't already know, but Antony Starr is over half a decade older than Homelander. Likewise, Karl Urban is close to being half a decade older than Butcher.
• Dear Negative Reader: With a side of sense of humor, The Boys cast respond to Amazon's one-star reviews.
• Descended Creator: Seth Rogen, who is an executive producer for the show, not only ends up playing himself in a few scenes, but also makes a cameo appearance as "Sir-Cums-A-Lot779" porn camera user, Celebrity Paradox notwithstanding.^note Then again, as he makes references to working in showbiz, Lot 779 might still be Rogen.
• Dueling Dubs: A rather interesting example happened with the Latin American Spanish dub. The show was originally dubbed in El Salvador, a country with a relatively small and emerging voice-acting industry. As a result, nearly all of the voice actors had little to no prior experience in the field, aside from dubbing documentaries; this hurt the final result. However, due to the show's success and the overwhelmingly negative reception of the Salvadoran dub, the entire show was re-dubbed from scratch in Mexico, with the Salvadoran Spanish dub being completely removed from circulation.^note Furthermore, this is one of the very few times in Latin America that a new dub was done to replace a very unpopular dub, and possibly the first time ever that this was done with an ongoing show, rather than just wait until its end to do that. More surprisingly, the fact the new dub was done in Mexico rather than using the Argentinian dub cast from its animated spin-off makes the whole decision more interesting, given Amazon's policy of either dubbing their shows to Spanish on the cheap in Latin America by dubbing them in either El Salvador or Argentina, barring some exceptions like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Antony Starr dyed his hair blonde to play Homelander, while Dominique McElligott dyed hers auburn to play Queen Maeve, who'd been blonde in the original comics.
  • Both, along with Erin Moriarty, have said their costumes fit the trope too: Starlight's "squeezed my torso until I couldn't feel my organs", Maeve's corset prevented McElligott from properly bending, and the muscle padding in Homelander's suit made things very hot during the Toronto summer.
  • Jensen Ackles spent a significant amount of time in the gym, putting on muscle for his role as Soldier Boy, only for Antony Starr to tell him at the start of filming that he could've just asked for a padded suit like Homelander's, something Ackles joking said: "crushed him".
• Executive Meddling: Heavily downplayed. There was only one note concerning the "Herogasm" episode - that this is a superhero orgy, not a regular orgy.
• Fake American:
  • All-American hero, Homelander, is played by Antony Starr, a New Zealander.
  • Queen Maeve is played by the Irish Dominique McElligott.
  • Hughie's dad is played by Simon Pegg, who is English.
  • Canadian Shawn Ashmore plays the American Lamplighter.
  • Nicola Correia-Damude, another Canadian, plays American Elena. They are both Latina though.
  • Nathan Mitchell, who is also Canadian, plays the American Black Noir in the present.
  • Claudia Doumit, an Aussie, plays American Congresswoman and the nominee for Vice President Victoria Neuman.
• Fake Brit: Karl Urban, who plays Billy Butcher, is from New Zealand.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Frenchie's actor, Tomer Capon, is Israeli, not apparently French.
  • Aya Cash, an American, plays Stormfront, who was born in Germany in 1919.
• Fanon: It's accepted in fan circles that the muscle padding on Homelander's suit is diegetic, and under it all Homelander is as skinny as the real Antony Star. This was first theorized to explain why the suit looked so dodgy, and was seemingly confirmed when HL is seen shirtless in Season 3.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Karen Fukuhara, who plays a mute character, is otherwise primarily known as a voice actor (aside from the role of Katana in Suicide Squad).
  • Dominique McElligott is blonde in real life, like the comic book Maeve but unlike the show Maeve.
• I Knew It!: Many fans expressed disappointment with the original Latin American Spanish dub done in El Salvador, leading to a desire for the show to be redubbed in Mexico and one of the top suggestions for a Mexican voice actor to dub Billy Butcher, for one example, was Raúl Anaya. As it turns out, the show will indeed be redubbed from scratch in Mexico starting March 2023, and Anaya will be the one to voice Butcher.
• Jews Playing Nazis: Aya Cash, who plays both Super Supremacist and literal Nazi superhero Stormfront, is Jewish in real life.
• Meaningful Release Date: Episode 2 of Season 3 has scenes set at Vought's theme park, Voughtland, featuring attractions and food stands with rainbow coloring and corporate slogans of diversity and inclusivity, criticizing corporate America’s crass commercialization of LGBT issues. The episode first streamed on June 3, 2022, three days into Pride month.
• The Other Darrin: Homelander and Becca's son is played by Parker Corno in Season 1 and Cameron Crovetti in Season 2.
• Production Posse: A few actors from past Eric Kripke shows appear:
  • Jensen Ackles, Jim Beaver, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Rob Benedict were in Supernatural.
  • Malcolm Barrett, Claudia Doumit, and Goran Višnjić were regulars in Timeless, while Shantel VanSanten was in that show's pilot.
  • Giancarlo Esposito was in Revolution.
  • Behind the scences, Phil Sgriccia was a producer on Supernatural and Revolution.
  • For executive producer Seth Rogen, his co-stars Rose Byrne, and Charlize Theron appear in Season 3 as themselves. Voice actress Grey DeLisle voices the animated Two Birds after being in the sister series Invincible and The Boys: Diabolical that same year earlier.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Nicola Correia-Damude plays Elena, Maeve's ex-girlfriend. She's bisexual in real life.
• Real-Life Relative: In the European Spanish dub, Albert Trifol Segarra voices Hughie Campbell, while his sister Nuria Trifol voices Starlight.
• Refitted for Sequel: Showrunner Eric Kripke said that Amazon forced him to cut a scene in season 1 in which Homelander masturbates off the top of the Chrysler Building after Stilwell dresses him down. It ends up appearing at the end of season 2, as part of Homelander's Villainous Breakdown.
• Role Reprise: Kumail Nanjiani reprises his role as Vik from Diabolical.
• Romance on the Set: Jack Quaid (Hughie) and Claudia Doumit (Victoria Neuman) were confirmed to be dating sometime before the season 3 premiere.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: Eric Kripke confirmed that the porn parodies of the Seven that Lamplighter watched have been filmed in full, making this a rare case where the porn is part of the production itself.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Justin Davis, who plays the young Stan Edgar in a flashback scene in Season 3, not only bears a strong physical resemblance to Giancarlo Esposito, but he also has his voice and cadence down to a tee.
• Throw It In!:
  • Butcher's attempt to reference The Matrix but getting the pill colors swapped was the result of Karl Urban getting the colors mixed up but rolling with it in character. The team thought it was funny and fitting, so they kept that take and used it in the episode.
  • Colby Minfie, who plays The Seven's PR manager Ashley Barrett, adlibbed her character's infamous "paella line."
• Underage Casting:
  • Downplayed, but A-Train’s actor, Jessie T. Usher was 27 in the show's beginning and it’s confirmed that A-Train is 32 years old in the first season.
  • Victoria Neuman's Red River file in season 3 establishes that she was born in 1986, making her six years older than Claudia Doumit, who was 29 when season 3 was filmed.
• Viral Marketing: There's an official Vought International-sponsored YouTube channel, which features news clips, music videos, and other miscellaneous videos starring the Seven. It also links to this promotional site for an in-universe movie based on the Seven (a parody of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, down to Vought Studios' logo mimicking that of Marvel Studios); the alleged release date of the film is the release date of the show's third season.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Eric Kripke stated that there was a take of the Love Sausage scene in season 2 where Mother's Milk bit the love sausage wrapped around his neck that was left on the cutting room floor. He also talked about bringing in Billy Joel to recreate his Second Wind video with Hughie, but it ended up being too expensive.
  • Brec Bassinger had auditioned for Starlight but she later went on to star in Stargirl (2020) playing the titular character.
  • Ethan Peck came close for The Deep which Chace Crawford was cast as.
  • Soldier Boy was meant to be even worse, but Jensen Ackles refused to do a certain scene that would've cemented him as a bad guy because he didn't want his kids seeing him like that. As a result, his character comes off as a Noble Demon with most of his worst acts being related by other characters.
  • The whole project began as a straightforward movie adaptation that languished in various levels of Development Hell between 2008 and 2016. If said movie got made, Russell Crowe was considered for the role of Butcher, and of course, Simon Pegg was the only man considered to play Hughie, given that Hughie in the comics was designed specifically to look like Pegg. However, by the time the movie got scrapped, Pegg was in his mid-forties and instead got picked to play Hughie's father.
  • After initially being re-tooled as a television series, it was under development under Cinemax and both comic creators Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson were set to be executive producers.

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