Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

...

I wanna tell now." And that really scared me, and that's why I thought it was so important to bring in Sarah because you, you...

For that show to work, the person who runs it has to be hungry.

You have to like, "Oh, I wanna try something different.

I wanna do s-" Like, the secret weapon of that show is how out-of-the-box it is, you know? And no one pays attention 'cause it's, like, this little monster show on the CW, but the fans who are inside it know that, like, it breaks form, it breaks format, it takes risks left, right, and center all the time, crazy risks that, that big shows w- would never do.

But in order to do that, you need someone at the helm who's like, "I wanna try to push this into places nothing's-

[rock music]

it

takes three days to write it takes a day for you to turn it around and give notes it's like five days that your writer isn't actually writing the thing that they are hired to write and it's such a crazy waste of time to me that i was so happy to forego that step what point were you able to forego that because that is a big deal to be able to not have to turn that in i learned it from sean ryan on timeless it was good to be with a showrunner as powerful and experienced and lauded as Sean was.

Yeah.

Sean doesn't even do that.

Sean pitches 10 minutes of just kind of impressions of where he thinks the episode's going to go because he hates outlines even more than me.

I I was like, well, I actually need more because I actually need to understand what me and the writers are writing.

My process adjusted a little bit, but I came into The Boys and said to them, because the value of it is, you know, in the beginning of the season, you have these writing schedules and you can present to them, like, here's how much faster you'll get everything.

I would have kept watching it forever.

it

takes three days to write it takes a day for you to turn it around and give notes it's like five days that your writer isn't actually writing the thing that they are hired to write and it's such a crazy waste of time to me that i was so happy to forego that step what point were you able to forego that because that is a big deal to be able to not have to turn that in i learned it from sean ryan on timeless it was good to be with a showrunner as powerful and experienced and lauded as Sean was.

Yeah.

Sean doesn't even do that.

Sean pitches 10 minutes of just kind of impressions of where he thinks the episode's going to go because he hates outlines even more than me.

I I was like, well, I actually need more because I actually need to understand what me and the writers are writing.

My process adjusted a little bit, but I came into The Boys and said to them, because the value of it is, you know, in the beginning of the season, you have these writing schedules and you can present to them, like, here's how much faster you'll get everything.

I would have kept watching it forever.

When did you start catching with that? There was a bit more of a divisive reaction amongst the fandom to people realizing, oh, like they're actively talking about our guy who's, you know, in the White House and like our politics and how we view this country.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like season two was the first time that people were like, wait a minute, what is this show? And I thought I was watching a superhero show or whatever that was.

I mean, if you go back and look at season two, it's about like Fox News, the far right.

Stormfront.

Stormfront, right? Like the tiki torches and all that bullshit.

And all that was there.

So I think from that point, As early as that point, it's like every season, there tends to be a new wave of people who seem to realize that the show is poking fun at them, or maybe it's just...

So how did you guys like always try to like thread that line, especially when knowing heading into this final season, there was a heightened level of expectation?

Uh, Vought Rising, the prequel that, um, is coming, and also The Boys Mexico, right? So lots, lots of different, uh, offshoots of this show, uh, on, on a show that always made fun of that concept.

Yeah.

Look, I'm well aware of it, and the criticism is fair, and I get the irony that we're, like, an a- anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-franchise show that is, you know, becoming a franchise.

All I can say is it's led with passion.

I mean, Diabolical was a fun experiment during COVID, and we did one season and that's gone.

Gen V was sadly canceled.

But, like, using Vought Rising as an example, this prequel series, that exists because Paul Grellong, the showrunner, is so passionate about the '50s and '50s noir and detective stories that that was his passion project.

Uh, w- so much of, of this seemed to mirror what we were actually going through, and so I was wondering how much of that was an accident? How much of that was you guys reacting in the moment and maybe turning into it? How did you get to the point where so much of the show seemed to predict where we are politically right now?

She, the, she is the most obsequious of all of the superheroes, and I wonder, were you thinking about, like, Trump Cabinet officials like Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi when you wrote this?

Yeah, and, um, um, I'd add to that, you know, uh, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I mean, when you're serving a narcissist, I'll just talk about Homelander.

[laughs] But when you're serving a narcissist, nothing is good enough, and eventually you'll be eaten and discarded.

That's just how again and again in history the people that are, have been close to strongmen, it's just, it's the f- fate of people who, who hitch their wagons to dangerous narcissists.

Right

... um, the, the weaponizing of Christianity and the new apostolic reformation, and this notion that, um, that Christianity is a, the God-given right of Americans as a Christian nation, um, and, and that somehow they're totally brushing over the whole separation of church and state that was so crucial to the founders and so crucial to the country, um, and that Trump will be the leader to this new Christian golden age where, um, the, the church and state borders will be dissolved.

And that obviously is terrifying and, and frightening, and also misguided because, you know, uh, uh, you know, Christianity, uh, is about love and charity and not to be weaponized for political ends.

I mean, what more does this man have to do to earn your respect?

But to answer your question, it's an incredibly collaborative, um, process, where we'll write what we, you know, need the story to be, and then, um, I have a lot of, you know, really in-depth conversations with Ant where we go over every line.

Um, and I completely welcome it.

You know? Like, I actually love that process, um, when somebody is as locked into the character as he is.

Like, he never says like, you know, the cliched actor things of like, "Well, why don't I do the cool thing?" Or, "Why don't I have more screen time?" He's only like, um, you know, "I'm really trying to prove to my dad that I'm a real man, so maybe when the president offers me a glass of milk, I get really mad and puffed up, and I ask for a Manhattan instead."

How did you balan- how did you do that balancing act?

A balancing act is exactly right.

How do you do enough that you can touch on it, but not so much that you feel like it's homework, um, or you feel like it's just a commercial? Where it really came from, honestly, was we had this notion of this V1 MacGuffin and, and we knew Soldier Boy was gonna be a character this season, and just, like, well, why is he immortal? And why is s- Stormfront immortal? And what is it about, you know, whatever they had, right? And, and, and so once you come up with V1, we didn't start it with like, "We gotta get Bombsite in there, guys.

Did you kind of want to raise the bar more?

I was very stressed, actually, going into season two, because I thought, you know, I was really happy with how season one turned out, and then I had to, you know...

I was very, frankly, very stressed and nervous about...

I was worried that I wouldn't hit the bar because I needed it to be at least as good and hopefully better.

And so that was scary.

So no, we decided among the writers and I that it would probably be a mistake to try to top it or go bigger.

because it's unsustainable and that what we really needed to do was go deeper and really dig into the characters and really what makes them tick.

He talks about Giancarlo Esposito's casting as Vote CEO Stan Edgar.