The Boys was undoubtedly the show that made Amazon a real contender in the streaming video market (although other hits like Borat Subsequent Moviefilm definitely pulled their own weight), and its hugely talented cast is one of the main reasons for its success.
While some of the actors that appear in the series are very well-known (and others are just now making their mainstream debut), they all have interesting stories, ones that a majority of the show's fans don't even know about. These little tidbits about ten of the series' main cast members are necessary reading for anyone interested in The Boys.
Jack Quaid Is Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan's Son
Hughie Campbell's actor Jack Quaid has particularly fitting parentage for such a prodigious talent: he's the son of actors Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. The elder Quaid said during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show that his son made it clear from a young age that he would follow in his parent's footsteps — "he had a video camera in his hand when he was like four years old."
But Jack didn't want to be helped along by his famous parents, instead finding an agent on his own. Less than a decade later, he's in "the hottest thing on streaming."
Erin Moriarty Has Seen Every Episode Of "The Twilight Zone"
After making a splash in the superhero genre with her appearance in the Marvel series Jessica Jones, Erin Moriarty rose to further prominence with her lead role as Starlight in The Boys.
A Just Jared interview with the actress dug up quite a few pieces of trivia about her (including that she considers her parents her best friends and would rather hang out with her dog than most humans), but the most interesting of these was that she's actually watched all five seasons of 1959's The Twilight Zone, which according to Bingeclock would take up three days' worth of her time.
Chace Crawford Still Gets Recognized For His Role In "Gossip Girl"
Chace Crawford might be having a career resurgence following his acclaimed performances as The Deep, but it wouldn't be his first moment in the spotlight.
The actor starred in the popular CW series Gossip Girl as Nate Archibald, a role that, despite the show having first aired more than a decade ago, still gets him recognized in the street. He credits this to newer generations discovering the show on Netflix, saying "it's weird how the same demographic has been frozen in time."
Tomer Capon's First Acting Role Was In A Purim Play
Actor Tomer Capon landed his first major television role with The Boys, in which he plays Serge (AKA Frenchie). He's been acting since childhood: when he was eight, he auditioned for his school's Purim play (a theatrical production based on the Biblical book of Esther, held for the Jewish festival of Purim) to impress a girl he liked.
He got the role, but he wouldn't take up acting professionally for nearly two more decades.
Jessie Usher Went To Culinary School
A-Train actor Jessie Usher said in a 2015 interview with MadameNoire that he went to culinary school, and that cooking is a "talent [of his] not a lot of people know about."
In 2016, he made a guest appearance on the Emmy-award-winning cooking-themed talk show The Chew.
Karen Fukuhara Has A Brown Belt In Kyokushin Karate
Karen Fukuhara, known to The Boys fans as "The Female", made her film debut as Katana in 2016's Suicide Squad.
Despite having little prior acting experience and no agent, she aced the audition by demonstrating the same martial arts talent that earned her a brown belt in karate years before. After a month and a half of training, she had officially landed the role that would launch her entertainment career.
Karl Urban Named His Son After Indiana Jones
Karl Urban, who plays Billy Butcher on The Boys, is a hugely popular actor whose screen credits include parts in everything from The Lord of the Rings to Star Trek.
He's also a big fan of the Indiana Jones franchise, with Raiders of the Lost Ark being one of his favorite films of all time — that's why he decided to name his son Indiana after the series' title character.
Laz Alonso Appeared In Budweiser's "Whassup" Commercials
Mother's Milk actor Laz Alonso might be best remembered for his roles in films like Avatar and Fast & Furious, but there's another big performance of his that's just as important to him — his part in the infamous Budweiser "Wassup?" commercial campaign.
And no wonder Alonso has such fond memories of the decades-old ad: the campaign was an instant hit for Budweiser, propelling their sales and making "Wassup?" forever a part of the mainstream lexicon.
Antony Starr Has A Scar Between His Eyes That He Got From A Plastic Coffee Cup
As Antony Starr revealed in an interview with Maxim, he has a "barely visible" scar between his eyes. The surprising part about this is not the scar itself but the story of how he got it: as he tells it, he "was 15 working at a supermarket" and "knocked over a stack of plastic coffee cups." In anger, he tossed one at a concrete wall, only for it to bounce back and cut his head open.
Acknowledging that his story details "the stupidest way to get a scar", he proposed changing it to present his scar as being from a shark attack.
Nathan Mitchell's Nut Allergy Was Carried Over To His "The Boys" Character
Nathan Mitchell's character in The Boys, Black Noir, has a deadly tree nut allergy. This corresponds with Mitchell's own nut allergy, and it's not by accident.
While Mitchell was on a plane ride to Comic-Con with the rest of the show's cast, Karl Urban came up with a way of incorporating Mitchell's real-life allergy into the series. Urban pitched the plan to showrunner Eric Kripke, who immediately loved the idea and decided to put it in the series.