THE BOYS
Going Deep
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although he was thrilled at the opportunity,
especially when a lot of his more bizarre
takes ended up being used in the final cut.
“By the end of it they were a little bit more
strict about the rampant swearing, but that
was about it,” he tells us cheerfully.
Fans of the comics will see a lot that they
recognise in the show – although The Deep’s
diving helmet is MIA, much to Crawford’s
relief – but the series will not slavishly
adapt Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s
source material. “[O]bviously the comics can
be so out-there. You can’t do all that stuff
[on TV], it can really turn a lot of people
off,” Crawford explains. “In the beginning
of it they follow the first volume closely,
where they introduce a new member of
The Boys every episode, for the first four or
five episodes, and then by the end of it [the
show’s] starting to become its own thing. I
think if it moves forward [into Season Two] it
will continue to be that. But the heart of the
comics is always there.”
One area in which the show begins to
diverge from the comics early on is in giving
us more of The Seven and Vought, so that the
series is basically a dual narrative, following
both the supers and the team who are trying
to bring them down. “I never worked with
any of The Boys, it was like two different
films almost,” Crawford says, adding that the
two halves of the cast barely even bumped
into each other behind the scenes, although
they’d all go out to dinner together. “We’re
in our glossy Vought Tower in our suits and
then they’re shooting all over Toronto late at
night in these humid tight cramped spaces
and everyone’s yelling – apparently it was
like two different experiences.”
But one thing the superhero side had to
deal with was the costumes, which Crawford
was pleasantly surprised by. “I was actually
nervous about it at first, just getting in
and out of it and getting too hot... but it’s
sleeveless, so I’m efficient now. I’m like a
race car driver in a pit stop, I can get it on
and off pretty fast.”
Crawford admits to being uncertain about
whether the show will be embraced by
anyone outside of the usual superhero fans.
“[I don’t know] if it’s going to be a small, cult
audience, or if it appeals to more people. It
certainly appealed to me,” he adds, which
says something as he openly admits to not
being a superhero fan. The violence will, he
says, inevitably put off some viewers, but he
thinks that it will appeal to non-comic book
fans too. “Not for nothing, it’s entertaining,
right?” he says enthusiastically. “It’s really
original and there’s nothing like it.”
The Boys arrives on Prime Video on 26 July.
Expect a twisted take
on caped heroes.
