Toronto ComiCon 2023 highlights : A Special Q&A Panel with the Cast of The Boys

Deadpool flipped me off. And then blew me a kiss. Best Comicon ever!

Toronto Comicon 2023 was packed wall to wall this year with some of the most impressive artists, clothing, fan art and merchandise. Thanks to Maze Studio Prints, I now own some of my favourite posters of all time. From high-definition prints of Spiderman to Venom to The Hulk. But the prints I purchased and will forever cherish are of Peter Griffin playing poker with Homer Simpson (The Simpsons), Bender (Futurama), Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty) and Spongebob Squarepants. Aside from the aisles upon aisles of comics and merchandise, there were also neon-lit illustrations, three-minute custom paintings, famous horror movie killers as dolls (including Pennywise, Ghostface and Annabelle) and let’s not forget—Hipster Lasers! This booth had custom cutting boards reading hilarious pens and themed sayings etched in by laser. Some standout designs included sayings like Jurassic Pork with a pig in place of the classic movie logo, as well as a photo of Steve Carell as Micheal Scott from The Office saying That’s what CHEESE said! I think it goes without saying this booth was one of the best there. But by far the coolest booth at Toronto Comicon this year was The One Ring Engravers, who were selling custom rings and engraving them in Elvish, much like The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings.

I attended two panels, both of which were for the hit Prime series The Boys. I was able to hear different members of the cast on both Saturday and Sunday discuss plenty of moments from the show, as well as some juicy insight on its fourth season. The first panel (on Saturday) consisted of Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Claudia Doumit and Jack Quaid. When asked if they’ve ever envied what some other actors get to do on the show, Quaid (who plays Hughie Campbell) pointed out that more often than not they actually feel relief, not jealousy, considering how grotesque The Boys can be at times. On this topic, Alonso (who plays Mother’s Milk) made it clear that he is done with the ‘Love Sausage’, an ongoing joke concerning his character: “I’m so over it. Somebody got a tattoo of The Boys on their calf and they have me with a penis wrapped around my neck. I’m like, that’s M.M.’s legacy? Really?” Much to Alonso’s chagrin, Quaid and Fukuhara reminisced on the day Alonso found out about his first scene with the Love Sausage: “It was incredible. He hadn’t read the script yet and we started talking to Laz like ‘Hey, you know you have this scene where a Love Sausage wraps around your neck?’ and he was just like ‘No…no’. He thought we were just messing with him.” Unfortunately for Alonso, his castmates weren’t joking around. Kripke had plans for him.

When asked how the cast keeps up with the ever-expanding lore of the show, Quaid mentions that the crew are very kind and receptive to any and all story-related inquiries: “The writers keep topping themselves every season and they keep writing very memorable things so you’re very rarely at a loss for what’s happening. It’s a safe space… where people can explode and have love sausages wrap around their necks!” Alonso jumps in to add on to Quaid’s answer, pointing out that different episodes can have different directors, who clearly juxtapose the normalcy this cast feels in regard to the outrageous shenanigans occurring every season: “To a new director, these situations might seem crazy but to our characters… it’s just another day.” 

Although strapped tightly by lengthy NDA’s, fans did get a juicy tidbit regarding Season 4 of The Boys thanks to Quaid’s allusion to a specific ‘mystery’ scene. When asked if there were any parts that were difficult to film, Quaid had this to say: “There was a scene we shot this season where I found my line… where I was like ‘This is too much for me.’ Usually, I’m pretty good with blood and gore and all the messed up stuff we do, but watching it, I had to turn away.” Referencing the same scene, Alonso adds: “This was the only time in my life, not on this show, in my life where I broke character and screamed. It caught me so off guard. I was out of character at that point. I was like ‘You guys aren’t gonna use this take are you?’ and nobody yelled cut. So I had to get back in character and keep going. As a matter of fact, our Special FX Supervisor Stephen Fleet tweeted about this and it went viral. He said something like ‘I have seen the grossest thing I have ever seen in my life on this show now. And he’s not wrong.” This is in reference to Fleet’s tweet on Jan. 12th, 2023 (which got two million views): I think I just saw the most disgusting thing I have seen working in this business thus far. #TheBoystv

Moving on to fan questions, one fan asked if there was a particular moment for each actor that made them realize just what kind of a show The Boys was amping up to be. In response, Quaid tells us a story about his second day on set: “It was Robin passing away—which is the light way of putting it. It was such an insane day. It was my second day ever and there was a slow-motion camera and a blood canon aimed at my face. That’s something you don’t see… dudes with a cannon that’s gonna hit you with wadded-up toilet paper for the gore… food coloring… red dye number five… oatmeal… all goes right in your face at a high velocity. It was a lot. I kinda liked that it was my second day on set because it was kind of like Hey! Welcome to the show! That prepped me for everything… except that thing I just talked about in season four. Which, you’ll know when you see it!” Alonso jumps in, saying: “For me, it was the Love Sausage.” 

Another fan asks the cast how much they know about the seasons while filming them. She asks Doumit if she knew who the ‘head popper’ was before the big reveal, prompting a hilarious response: “I did not know. They hired me and were like ‘You’re this really cool congresswoman!’ and I was like ‘Great!’ and they were walking around all season saying ‘We’re really excited for your character!’ and I was like ‘Yeah… she’s giving a speech… it’s pretty cool…?’ And then I got the script for Episode 7 and it was just like boom! boom! boom! boom! in the courtroom scene. Which was a fun surprise for all of us.” Quaid asks Doumit if they had blood cannons aimed at her face, to which she replies: “They had so many blood cannons aimed at my face. My favorite thing is when they say ‘Don’t anticipate. And we need to get it in one [take].’ It doesn’t make you anticipate anything at all!” 

The second panel (on Sunday) consisted of Karl Urban, Colby Minifie, Jessie T. Usher, Tomer Capone and Nathan Mitchell. After speaking of burgers and caesars, the cast moved on to discuss if they envied any of the scenes their castmates got to partake in. This triggered a hilarious and prompt response from Capone (who plays Frenchie): “Herogasm!” Reminiscing on the day, Urban references a story told to him by castmate Jenson Ackles, who plays Soldier Boy in Season 3: “He turned up one day to shoot and there was a camera assistant sitting with this thousand-yard stare eating a sandwich and Jenson goes ‘Hey man! How’s it going?’ and the guy turns to him and goes ‘Dude… I’ve seen some shit!’” Minifie says she envies everyone who gets to walk around without stilettos on. When asked about their experiences with blood cannons, Minifie had this to say: “I have a very quick blood cannon story. In the courtroom, when Victoria Neuman starts exploding everybody’s heads… it took them maybe like three hours to set up this one blood cannon shot. It was supposed to go to my chest. We had rehearsed it a bunch of times. I’m like ‘I scream and then run away!’ and we had one chance to get this thing. They load the blood cannon with stuff to make it look like brains. I was getting really into it and the blood cannon’s about to go off but I get a bit too low… so the blood cannon hit my face! It felt like somebody took a dictionary and just tossed it at my face. And everybody went silent because they thought I was genuinely hurt. But I finished the take and went ‘YEAH!’ and everyone saw I was fine. But I was expecting tons of bruises on my face the next day!” 

When asked who ad-libs the most on set, Mitchell (who plays Black Noir) raises his hand. Minifie is singled out when Campbell references comments made about her during the previous panel: “A little bird told me that you sometimes try and ad-lib comments that will implicate you in future storylines to guarantee you’ll stay in the show longer.” Minifie is hilariously baffled: “Who said that?! Who’s throwing me under the bus right now? I mean, I’m still here…” But Minifie goes on to praise P.J. Byrne, who plays Director Adam Bourke, on his improvisational abilities: “He came in one day and he was doing a description of Dawn of the Seven… and he learned it in thirty seconds and added all of these ad-libs and I was like ‘Who the fuck is this guy? He’s a genius!’”

Moving on to fan questions, one asks how the cast used the original source material (Garth Ennis’ comic book series which inspired the television show) to become their characters. Interestingly, Mitchell references a spontaneous conversation he had with Ennis himself: “As a comic book fan, I understand wanting to see what’s on the page on the screen. But after speaking with Garth, he ultimately told me that the character is mine to do what I think is best with it.” 

One fan asks a particularly juicy question, asking the cast what the hardest scene for them to film throughout the series was. Usher mentions his tragic scene with Popclaw (played by Brittany Allen), explaining that it was surprisingly technical because it happens at super speed: “They have to shoot it in three different ways… they do a plated version, a version with me in it, a version with or without the other actor in it… it’s just super technical but also emotional. They’d be like ‘Hold that tear!’ then swap this person out, put in the prosthetic and then go again. So that was tough. But getting through it added weight to the scene because it was just so intense and everyone was really honed in on that moment.” Mitchell chimes in with a tragic answer: “I would say Season 3, Episode 8. It was tough. I remember when we were getting in and setting up it felt like someone was dying. I was really sad. I just felt this heavy energy in the room. We get into blocking, it gets technical… but that was a heavy day in a lot of ways. And it was messy.” Urban also answers, referencing the difficulty he found in filming his fight with Translucent back in Season 1: “Normally, when you’re doing a stunt fight, there’s somebody else there opposite you. But when you’re fighting an invisible guy, you have to remember what punch he’s throwing at you. But when we shot that, we had a guy in a green suit… then they took him out and I had to remember what he did.” He goes on, mentioning his heartbreaking scene in Season 3 with Cameron Crovetti, who plays Ryan: “It was a challenge to shoot. He delivered. I understood the motivation for Butcher having to do that and the situation that he was in mentally at the time. But it didn’t make it any easier or fun to play, so that was a challenge.” 

One fan asks Urban how he felt about Butcher acquiring superpowers via Temp V in Season 3, to which he replies filled him with excitement: “In the first couple seasons, the arsenal The Boys have to use against the Supes was relatively limited. It was bribery, coercion… all that… and there’s only so many times you can play that card. I liked when Butcher got superpowers, it was close to the comics in how The Boys take V to level up so they can physically take on [the Supes]. It was certainly a lot of fun to play. It is always more fun to be able to physically do fight scenes with other characters. Like, I have massive envy of Karen. She’s so badass in the show and she gets the best fights hands down. So it was fun to play in those borders for a little bit.” 

Urban takes a moment to throw a cannon-load of thanks to the city of Toronto and its residents: “Let me say, Toronto. You guys are awesome. We couldn’t be more grateful for your hospitality that we’ve all experienced over the four or five years we’ve been here shooting our show. You’ve made us so welcome, it’s a home away from home and that’s the primary reason we all wanted to come here this weekend and thank you. You guys are the best. You’ve got a great city and we love you!” 

We love you too boys, girls, supes and love sausages! And we can’t wait to see what diabolical madness you’ll get up to next season on The Boys.

Check out our recap of Toronto Comicon below

Review by Guest Blogger Jurgen Sosa