Amazon's The Boys: Karl Urban Talks Season 2, Judge Dredd, Batman, and More
Karl Urban talks The Boys Season 2.
byDavid Griffin
Posted Aug. 8, 2019, 5 p.m.
Warning! Full SPOILERS for The Boys: Season 1 below. For more on the series, be sure to check out our Season 1 spoiler-free review of The Boys, and our ending explained and Season 2 predictions right here.
The Boys Season 1 finale ends with a shocker, revealing that Billy's wife Becca is alive and well while raising Homelander's super-powered son under a new alias. Billy's motivations for his crusade against Vought International and its superhero army comes into question as we look ahead to Season 2.
IGN spoke to actor Karl Urban about his character's journey in Season 1, and what we can expect to see from him in the future. "Season 2 is really about humanizing butcher," Urban told IGN. "So it's going to be exciting to deliver something that deepens the character and keeps it fresh for the audience."
One of the best narrative aspects from The Boys first season is its ability to create nuanced characters who are so much more than good vs. evil archetypes. "I love moral ambiguity in characters, to me that's interesting," Urban explained. "When things are very black and white, I have less interest in it. The most compelling thing about characters, in my opinion, are their faults, because it's their faults that humanize them and make them relatable."
Urban admits that he wasn't much of a comic book reader as a teenager, however, graphic novels like "Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns" and "Judge Dredd" did resonate with him. "I enjoyed Dredd for not only the dystopian vision of the future but also the character of Dredd was imminently fascinating," Urban told IGN. "Particularly, later on in the writing where you have a character that has come to realize that the system that he has sworn to serve, to protect, and to uphold, was not always meant to be forever. And knowing that it is a flawed system is, to me... That inner conflict is of great interest."
The New Zealand-born actor also admits he has a fondness for Batman and the Joker's complex relationship. "I find that interesting that Batman is just the flip side of the other coin, The Joker," Urban said. "If you think about it, he's a grown man running around in a disguise, beating the living s**t out of people. Albeit at times obviously for the right reason, but there's a mental condition going on there."
While writer Garth Ennis and illustrator Darick Robertson co-created The Boys nearly 13 years ago, Urban believes their story still speaks to many of the societal issues we face today. "I think that it [The Boys] is a great metaphor for modern celebrity culture in general," Urban explained. "You only have to look at the numerous celebrity scandals from Weinstein to Cosby to Spacey, and countless more individuals that society idolized, yet in truth were not what they appeared. And The Boys was ahead of its time in recognizing that and putting it into the framework of a superhero genre."
The Boys Season 2 is currently in production in Toronto. No release date has yet been announced.
David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He's also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.
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