Karl Urban, who plays Billy Butcher on Amazon Prime's The Boys, details the origin of Butcher's season 1 reference to The Matrix. The Boys, which recently wrapped up season 3, is a darkly satirical superhero series based on a graphic novel series of the same name about a team of vigilantes that fight 'heroes' who are up to no good. Urban's character Butcher is introduced in The Boys season 1 as the troubled leader of the ragtag group. His charm and humor are contrasted with a shocking violent streak, which ramps up as his quest for revenge consumes him.
Part of Butcher's humor comes from his many pop culture references. Chief among his iconic lines is the pep talk he gives The Boys in season 1, episode 4, in which he compares their team to British pop group The Spice Girls (stronger together than apart). Lines like this serve a dual purpose in the show - humanizing and lightening the dark character of Butcher as well as providing meta commentary and foreshadowing for the events of the series. After the season 1 Spice Girls talk, The Boys eventually do separate in season 3 to disastrous results, and triumph when they finally reunite.
In a recent video for GQ, Urban offers behind the scenes insight on some of Butcher's iconic moments, including a line in one early scene that set the stage for Hughie and Butcher's journeys as well as introducing Butcher's habit of pop culture pep talks. In the scene, Butcher works to persuade Hughie to fully commit to his cause and infiltrate Vought. He refers to the blue/red pill conundrum from The Matrix to get Hughie on his side. According to Urban, that line was originally unscripted. Here's what he said about the scene:
"The fantastic thing about working on The Boys is that it's a very collaborative process. If you come up with an idea that has some merit and pitch it to Kripke, he's fantastic. He plays 'best idea wins.' When we were shooting the first season and there's a scene where Butcher is trying to convince Hughie to go into Vought and plant a listening device, to me it seemed very like the threshold of the rabbit going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, and also reminded me a little bit of The Matrix. With that in mind, I pitched Kripke an idea that Butcher would reference the Matrix in the moment and then we shot that, and that's the one that we ended up using."
Urban's idea to bring a Matrix reference to the character actually calls back to when he first met Hughie, who said he looked like he was starring in "a porn version of The Matrix." The line also offers some key early insight into his character. Butcher describes Hughie's life if he decides to take the red pill in cruel, amusing fashion, but switches from red to blue halfway because he can't remember the functions of either pill. He ends the deliberation with, "anyway, take the other pill and stop being a c***." His tendency to prioritize the destination over the journey is clear in the line, foreshadowing his later decisions.
Urban's comments paint the picture of a supportive and encouraging set in which all voices are heard and valued, which is a credit to showrunner Eric Kripke's model for the series. One of the most popular shows he developed and then ran for the first five seasons, Supernatural, had a famously collaborative environment in which actors often contributed ideas for their characters and had the freedom to try them out. The cast and crew on that series remain close, with Supernatural star Jensen Ackles reuniting with Kripke as Soldier Boy on The Boys season 3. On social media and in interviews, it's clear that The Boys cast and crew, entering season 4, also share a tight bond which is no doubt due to their team-driven environment.
Source: GQ