Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, Trailer, TV | Tagged: Boy, Jensen Ackles, preview, soldier, the boys, trailer

The Boys S03: Ackles on Soldier Boy Line, Chris Evans' Butt & More

As a newly-emboldened & progressively psychotic Homelander (Antony Starr) goes from pariah to "golden boy," he's looking to make folks pay… especially Starlight (Erin Moriarty). Meanwhile, Butcher (Karl Urban) begins #TheHuntForSoldierBoy, but finding Jensen Ackles' original supe is one mission Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) might not want to see succeed. How's that for a lead-in to this week's episode of Amazon and Showrunner & EP Eric Kripke's The Boys Season 3? With some time to kill before the next chapter, we're checking in with Ackles as he makes the press rounds in support of the streaming series. And he's offering up some interesting intel, covering the in-world "movie-within-a-series" footage we haven't seen yet, the line that sold him on Soldier Boy, the one "cumbersome" thing to playing the character, and how Ackles & Soldier Boy would stack up against Chris Evans' Captain American when it comes to battle and butts.

Ackles Filmed Scenes for Soldier Boy's 1983 Film "Red Thunder": "It's like 'Die Hard' or the original 'Red Dawn.' It's that kind of like, 'We're under siege,' and it's the '80s. It's a bad action movie, is basically what it ended up being. I remember thinking, 'Oh God, this is terrible acting,' and Phil kept encouraging that while we were filming."

Ackles on One of the Lines That Sold Him on Playing Soldier Boy: "I read [the scene] and I just remember there was a line where Soldier Boy said: 'I was banging some Playboy in the grotto and Peter Fonda's thumb was up my ass.' I don't know what this says about me, but right then I was like, 'I gotta play this role!' I was really excited about it."

So About That Shield…: "I mean, the shield was a little cumbersome — I'm not gonna lie. I was like, how the hell am I gonna carry this thing around all season? But it was a lot of fun. There's such a wealth of detail and color that these guys write into these characters."

Ackles Doesn't See a Face-Off with Evans/Captain America Going Well: "Chris and I should probably talk about doing some sort of face-off or crossover," Ackles teased before adding, "No, he's got magic powers! And his shield can return to him; my shield is just a blunt object. He wins."

And It Sounds Like Evans' Still Gets to Be "America's Ass": "Evans is gonna win that one, too. He doesn't have three kids, so he gets to work out!"

Kripke & Ackles offer some earlier intel on why Ackles was perfect for Soldier Boy, and why Soldier Boy represents every bad aspect of masculinity during a previous interview. Here are some of those highlights:

Kripke on Why Ackles Was Perfect for Soldier Boy: "Jensen, he's the best. Obviously, I've worked with him for a minute and everything I throw at him, I know he can do. He can be charming. He can be funny. He can be scary. He can credibly do action. He can make you cry, and so I needed somebody who could do all those colors. Once Jensen was locked in, it [was] a relief for me, really, because I know him so well that I can write really confidently."

When Soldier Boy Returns, Ackles Teases That He Returns with a Mission: "Playing the oldest superhero on the scene with a bunch of new faces, essentially, it was… Just kind of keeping him on mission, on task. He's back, he's got vendetta, and he's got a list of people that he's checking off. So it was more of just watching him go through this physical journey, not necessarily an emotional journey."

For Kripke, Soldier Boy Personifies That "Marlboro Man Bullshit" Masculinity We've Seen in Real Life: "Soldier Boy to me is very symbolic of 60 plus years of what pop culture has defined as masculine and that macho John Wayne, Marlboro Man bullshit. His arc was presenting as that, but then revealing more and more what a sham that is and how nobody is like that and it never existed, and yet we've poisoned generation after generation of boys by telling them they somehow have to meet this impossible ideal," Kripke explained. "One of the reasons we had such a piece of shit president who thought it was more important to project vitality over compassion, the reason Putin is who he is. So much of it is because these people are trying to be macho instead of being human. So I wanted to give Soldier Boy that arc."

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