Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy will be front and center during the third season of Amazon Prime’s “The Boys,” and not just because he’s the new guy and he and showrunner Eric Kripke worked together for years on “Supernatural”.
The third season of this series, based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, is currently in production and sees the character make his debut – the first-ever superhero in the show’s fictional world.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Kripke discussed Soldier Boy’s role in the third season and how his story will be used to explore the history of Vought and the effect the superheroes have had on this world:
“Season 3 delves a lot more into the history of how we got here through this character of Soldier Boy. We were able to dig into both the history of the country and also really look at toxic masculinity, and masculine roles, and what a s—show that’s overall caused. This whole f—ing, independent Marlboro man thing.”
Originally, the creative team were reportedly looking at actors much older than Ackles, but a chance phone call during pre-production changed things:
“We had written Soldier Boy long before I cast Jensen. The majority of the guys we were looking at for that part were actually quite older than Jensen. Because it’s a World War II hero. He happened to call me and we were just chatting and I’m like, ‘Well I’m prepping season 3 of the show, and I have this character Soldier Boy, and it was a real pain to cast, and I haven’t really found anyone. Hey, wait a minute, do you want to do it?’ I sent him the script, and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, I totally want to do this.’”
From that call, Ackles’ deal was made in a matter of days. The series was recently nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards. No word as to when the third season will debut, though most likely not until early next year.