Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: the boys, vought rising

The Boys: Kripke, Ackles Talk Final Season Setting Up "Vought Rising"

The Boys Showrunner Eric Kripke and series star Jensen Ackles offer some new insights into how the final season helps set up "Vought Rising."

Here's one thing we do know about the series finale of Prime Video and Showrunner Eric Kripke's The Boys. No matter what happens by the time the final credits roll, we know we've still got more Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) in our future. Ironically enough, it's coming from Showrunner Paul Grellong's Ackles and Aya Cash (Clara Vought, aka Stormfront)-starring prequel series The Boys: Vought Rising. If you're up to date on the final season, you know it's been doing a fine job of dropping important clues/easter eggs for the spinoff series. Now, we're getting a chance to learn more about what's to come from two key players. First up, Ackles shares what it was like playing a version of Soldier Boy who is years (and a whole lot of bad experiences) away from becoming the supe we've gotten to know.

"It was exciting, and it was a little bit more challenging because I felt like I'd gotten to know modern-day Soldier Boy pretty well and had him kind of dialed in. And then it kind of stripped a lot of that away to tell the story of how he was back then, before a lot of the shit had happened. But also, while that stuff is happening, when we see him in 'The Boys,' this is the past of all of that stuff, and it's how that kind of shaped his life and shaped who he was and his ideology of himself and of the world," Ackles explained during an interview with Deadline Hollywood.

"But you kind of have to strip all that away because he's now going through it, so it's the heartache and the breakup and the experience that he's having in 'V Rising' that we then understand why he became who he became," he continued. "So, it was a little bit different. It was a little trickier to get some footing in that character, but Paul Grellong, who ran the show, did an incredible job of writing these characters out, these storylines, and you'll definitely see the modern-day Soldier Boy; he's in there. But you kind of get the sense of seeing why certain elements of his personality took over more."

Speaking with TV Insider, Kripke shared that Homelander and Soldier Boy's trip to Fort Harmony gave them a chance to expand on the show's universe while offering key elements that will be much more in play in the prequel series. "It's like a little bit of a teaser on 'Vought Rising,' but it's not so much about the location as it is about the stories that you hear about all the different characters, like Soldier Boy's rivalry with his brother, for example, or when you meet him in 'Vought Rising,' he's not like this tough, cocky, devil may care guy, he's a much more green version of Soldier Boy that everyone frankly rolls their eyes at because he's the rich kid who bought his way into the program, whereas everyone else was really seasoned military," Kripke explained.

He continued, "And also the notion that the trial and error and the death and destruction that Vought caused on his way to making those four super soldiers, and then as it evolves into creating what we know the V as we know it today, and the trail of bodies he left behind, that's an important setup as well. So it was fun. We tried to do it in a way that was just important to this particular episode. And every season we're talking about Compound V, where did it come from, how did it start, what really is its origins, and that's just interesting in and of itself, but it also helps kind of tease 'Vought Rising.'"

Along with Ackles and Cash, the spinoff prequel also stars Will Hochman (Blue Bloods), Elizabeth Posey (Euphoria), Jorden Myrie (Bridgerton), Nicolò Pasetti (Industry), Ricky Staffieri (The Bear), Brian J. Smith (Sense8), Mason Dye (Stranger Things), KiKi Layne (The Old Guard 2), Cecily Strong (Saturday Night Live), Mark Pellegrino (American Rust), Eric Johnson ("Fifty Shades" franchise), Annie Shapero (House of the Dragon), Raphael Sbarge (Task), Romi Shraiter (Ginny & Georgia), Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica), and David Hewlett (Mistletoe Murders).

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