It’s tough being a woman — especially a woman of color — in the world of Prime Video’s The Boys. For the six women in the series — Annie aka Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Vice President-Elect Victoria Neurman (Claudia Doumit), Vought CEO Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), and newcomers Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) and Firecracker (Valorie Curry), it’s all about survival in a Homelander-dominated society.
“I don’t think [anybody] can escape Homelander,” Minifie tells The Nerds of Color. “He can find anybody if he wants to. He’s got the power of hearing and is the most powerful superhero in the world. The entirety of the law system is behind him. Everybody’s afraid for their own lives. They’re gonna do whatever they can to support him.”
Despite Ashley being the company’s CEO, Minifie says her character can’t run even with all the money in the world. She gives Ashley two or three days tops if she did manage to escape Homelander.
Everyone agrees with her, especially the series’s two new villains/antagonists. Heyward and Curry. Sister Sage, who is the smartest person in the world, orchestrates Homelander’s takeover “because she’s bored.” Although she could have stayed in her room with her books, she has the opportunity to show the world her genius. As for Firecracker, the right-wing villain uses her platform to gain more attention and fame, which Curry says immediately places the character into the Vought system.
“Once the Vought system chooses you, you have lost agency,” Curry explains. “I think that’s the theme throughout the entire show, and how everyone copes with this idea of being super-powered and a celebrity. Yet, at the same time, having no agency.”
Fukuhara, whose character Kimiko has been around since the first season and was forced into the situation to fight Vought, says the team is running out of choices to really survive. She shares, “We have to make sometimes not the right decision, but we have to stick to a decision to see if that actually comes out.”
Moriarty, another seasoned veteran in The Boys universe, compares the world they’re into a game that has been rigged. So, they have to do whatever it takes to fight the system. Annie may have left her Starlight mantle and Vought, but she’s still fighting against the organization because she has to.
“How do you operate in a world that’s so toxic that you can’t even find anyone to trust?” Moriarty says. “How do you operate in that world — you react to it? What wouldn’t you do? If you were raised under those circumstances, would you do what it right?”
“Or we just pop their head,” jokes Doumit, whose character’s powers are controlling blood and the ability to make heads explode. “It is tough to navigate as your character because you’re navigating through such a morally gray world and atmosphere. These situations and characters present themselves, but they’re very limited in the amount of answers. It feels like all solutions are traps.”
For more of the interview, check it out below:
The Boys Season 4 is out now on Prime Video!
