'The Boys' Casting News (Amazon 2019)

A few months ago I wrote about my excitement for the news that production was gearing up to start on Amazon's TV adaptation of Garth Ennis's The Boys. Some of the early casting had been announced, but here I'm going to run through the main character cast list for the recently wrapped Season 1 and look at how the casting matches up against the graphic novels characters.

Jack Quaid as Wee Hughie

Relative newcomer Jack Quaid is playing the central character of Wee Hughie who becomes the newest recruit to The Boys. Son of Dennis Quaid & Meg Ryan, Quaid hasn't done much yet with small roles as Marvel in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and as Clark Morelle in HBO's Vinyl. Shave his head and he looks the part but this will be his first major lead role, of course his Scottish accent better be up to snuff as well.

Karl Urban as Billy Butcher

Genre favourite Karl Urban was perhaps not the first choice to play The Boys unscrupulous leader but his pedigree of performances as Dredd & Bones in Star Trek show he is a man of many talents. The character of Butcher is so complex and layered that any actor would jump at the role, and I'm fairly confident Urban will excel here.

Laz Alonso as Mothers Milk

I'll freely admit to not being familiar with Alonso's work, but a quick check of his IMDB reveals he has been working steadily throughout his career building up to larger roles in more prominent TV shows such as The Mysteries of Laura & Breakout Kings. From the comparison clip above he already has the look for Mothers Milk, and as we learn more about the character throughout the show Alonso will get to flex his acting muscles.

Karen Fukuhara as The Female

Technically speaking, Karen Fukuhara has already played a very similar role as Katana in DC's Suicide Squad, a role that did not require much in emotional acting but lots in action. The Female is a very similar character except she has an amazing backstory and so having an almost trial run playing a similar character should give the young upcoming Fukuhara a solid role to play over multiple season.

Tomer Kapon as The Frenchman (TBC)

Israeli actor Tomer Kapon is rumoured to be The Frenchman however he is still not listed on the shows IMDB and only Wikipedia confirms his involvement in the show, so for now I'd treat this as a strong rumour rather than fact.

Through The Boys there is a multitude of other characters cast for Season 1 and while no means complete we will take a look at a few of the other key players.

Erin Moriarty as Annie January/Starlight

Another relative newcomer, I first saw Erin Moriarty in the great indie film Kings of Summer, after that she had roles on shows such as True Detective & Jessica Jones. This will be one of Moriarty's first big lead roles and the story arc of Starlight and her relationship with Hughie is key to the overall arc of The Boys.

Anthony Starr as The Homelander

Kiwi actor Anthony Starr will play The Homelander, imagine if Superman behind closed doors was a rampant psychotic deviant with no one to stop him? Well, thats the character Starr will be playing in The Boys. Starr did great work as the lead in Banshee and it will be interesting to see how much of the true atrocious acts his character commits in the graphic novels will make it into the show.

Chace Crawford as The Deep

An interesting choice here as The Deep is basically an evil African American Aquaman, yet they've changed to a white actor to play the character. Crawford is well known for Gossip Girl but he has not done much of note in the last few years. That fits with the casting as The Deep although one of The Seven super villain team doesn't have much depth or backstory compared to the other characters.

Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve

Irish actress McElligott has worked steadily throughout the last few years with decent roles in Hell On Wheels & House Of Cards. Queen Maeve is almost like a big sister to Starlight when she joins The Seven and she has a layered yet disturbing backstory to her character.

The other actors of note that have been cast are Elizabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell who I believe is going to be the character of James Stillwell from the comics as the head of shadowy corporation Vought-American. Finally veteran actress Jennifer Esposito will play exactly to type as Susan L Rayner, Director of the CIA and the person who gives The Boys their missions.

The Boys has a good mix of experience and unknown quantities in its cast, with some roles/characters being race and sex changed, but luckily there doesn't seem to be much uproar online about it for a change.

Karl Urban should be the shows MVP as Billy Butcher and lets just hope the show runners do a good job in adapting the source material to screen better than what happened to Preacher over at AMC.