The Boys Season 3: Karl Urban On How It Feels For Butcher To Have Powers
The Boys star Karl Urban opens up on how it feels for his character, Billy Butcher, to have powers in season 3. Urban's Butcher spent the first two seasons of the show hating anyone with superpowers. Butcher puts together a vigilante team called The Boys, whose goal is to take down the Seven: a group of superheroes owned by the Vought International corporation, who market and profit off anyone with powers. Unlike their heroic public personas, The Seven are actually incredibly troubled, vain, and disillusioned. Butcher hates those with powers because he knows what they are really like, as opposed to how they are marketed by corporations.
Season 3 saw Butcher coming to have powers of his own after taking Temp V, a Vought serum, which gives him superhuman powers for 24 hours. The first time he takes it, Temp V allows him to withstand gunshots and shoot lasers from his eyes. Butcher gaining powers also creates a struggle for the character, having to come to terms with how helpful these powers can be, while also despising the part of himself that he's always hated in others.
Related: The Boys Season 3: Who Is Soldier Boy? Powers & Origin Explained
In an interview with Variety, Urban reflected on Butcher's powers, saying that he enjoyed giving Butcher the moral dilemma of turning into the very thing he hates for the sake of taking supes down. Kripke also stated that Butcher's powers are a physical metaphor for what is going on inside of him. When it came to acting out having superpowers, Urban admits that the process felt bizarre, saying:
It felt a little bit ridiculous, to tell you the truth. The reality is, you’re standing on set and you’re doing your best to give a laser stare, but there’s no lasers coming out, obviously.
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