MUST-SEE TV
The BoysWWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UKWE TALK TO CHACE CRAWFORD, AKA THE
DEEP, ABOUT THE BOYS’ GLEEFULLY TWISTED
TAKE ON SUPERHEROES WORDS ABIGAIL CHANDLER
WHEN IT COMES to offensive Garth
Ennis comics, you might go to Preacher for
blasphemy, but you’d come to The Boys for
everything else. Violence, swearing and
every type of sexual depravity you can think
of – and some you can’t. If you’ve ever felt
that superheroes are just far too unbelievably
clean-cut, then hoo boy is this the TV show
for you. “It’s a pretty wild show,” Chace
Crawford agrees when we meet up.
Crawford plays The Deep, a “spoiled
Zoolander meets Aquaman”, one of the
members of The
Seven, the world’s
top-tier superhero
team managed
by international
conglomerate
Vought. But
these guys are no
Justice League – in
Crawford’s words,
they are “abusive
and fraudulent and
they’re liars and
selfish people,”
which is why Billy
Butcher (Karl
Urban)’s off-the-
books team The
Boys are so intent on
bringing them down.
The Seven’s awfulness is driven home in
the first episode, where The Deep casually
commits sexual assault. We ask Crawford
if it was a challenge taking on a character
who starts off at such a low point, and going
on to make him, if not likeable, at least
understandable. “I think you do sympathise
with him a bit, because at the end of the day
he’s sad. He doesn’t really know who he is.
And he does get punished in a way, a little
bit, he gets demoted, of sorts, and goes on adark path. You get to peel back a few layers
and see the vulnerability and why he’s so
insecure and why he hates himself.”
The Boys touches on some serious
topics alongside the madness, with the
premise allowing showrunner Eric Kripke
(Supernatural) and Preacher producers
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to “[take]
down celebrity and media culture and
it even sort of ties in to politics and big
money corporations,” Crawford says, not to
mention the general conversation society’s
been having in
the last few years
about the abuse of
power. “I think it
is contributing to
the conversation, I
hope in a good way,”
Crawford muses. The
Seven is certainly a
good example of a
toxic workplace, led
by Antony Starr’s
Homelander, an
unhinged riff on
Superman. But all
that is incidental -
this isn’t a serious,
political show. Like
Preacher, it’s gasp-
inducingly outrageous and very, very funny.
“I think there was a nice balance,” says
Crawford. “I think they used some grounded
moments, and they also used some out-
there improv stuff that I did as well. I was
wondering what the tone [was] going to be
when this all [came] together, because there
were so many moving parts, and I think it
came together well.”
We were surprised to hear that any improv
would be allowed on a show that has a lot
of elements to juggle, and so was Crawford,Chace Crawford as
“hero” The Deep.Billy Butcher is
bringing the pain.