Exit Interview: Karl Urban Is Excited to Be One of The Boys
Karl Urban is very happy that he’s finished filming the second season of The Boys, Amazon’s darkly funny, anti-corporate take on superheroes. He’s happy because he’s very excited about how the sophomore season shaped up. He’s happy because the show’s first season was a massive success for the streaming service, and because it became one of the most talked-about freshman series of the year. But Urban is also happy because wrapping season two meant he got to leave Toronto, where the series is filmed, and head back to his home in New Zealand before the weather got bad.
“We just wrapped last week, and truly, the day after I left, it snowed,” Urban tells GQ over the phone in late November, enjoying the Southern Hemisphere’s spring weather. “I got out at the right time.”
The Boys isn’t the first time that the 47-year-old actor has been at odds with a costumed superhero. In 2018, he played the gun-toting Asgardian Skurge in Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, and he played the hyper-serious super-cop Judge Dredd in 2012’s Dredd. He’s also racked up scene-stealing roles in big fantasy franchises ( Lord of the Rings) and sci-fi tales alike (he played Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in the Chris Pine-led Star Trek films).
The Boys, though, feels distinctly relevant to this moment in time. Urban plays Billy Butcher, a powerless human who launches a violent vendetta against superheroes, who enjoy the public’s adoration and respect despite all the collateral damage they leave in their wake. Butcher blames Homelander—a hero with the abilities of Superman, the patriotism of Captain America, and the psychopathy of most Batman villains— for his wife’s death, but as the show’s first season progresses, it becomes clear that the corporations behind the “heroes” might just be the real source of evil in the world—you know, like in real life.
Over the course of our chat, Urban walked us through his time on The Boys, his career in almost all your favorite genre franchises, his hopes for 2020, and… well, you’ll see.
GQ: Why do you think The Boys struck such a cord? When I first saw the trailers, I was expecting it to be another entry in the “dark and edgy” take on the superhero genre, but it ended up being about much, much more.
Karl Urban: It's a complex question and it predominantly deals with audience reaction. I think one of the main reasons the show resonates to the degree that it has is because it's a character-driven show and that's really a testament to the quality of writing that [show runner Eric Kripke] and his team have delivered. And then also stellar performances from the cast. I believe that the audience also really responded to an alternative narrative in the superhero genre than [that which] had been predominantly portrayed in mainstream cinema for the last decade-plus.
And you've obviously been a part of that very trend with Thor: Ragnarok. How was making The Boys different from your experience making a Marvel movie?
Well, here's the thing: On the ground, the experience was fundamentally the same. Obviously tonally the material is extremely different. From my perspective, it was another opportunity to collaborate with excellent partners. For me, you know, the destination is not what's important. The journey is everything. Once I've finished working on a piece, then it's not mine anymore. It's the audience’s.
What was it like to play Billy Butcher? He feels like a very specific type of character for our time, both in terms of his fairly righteous anger and his possibly too far extreme ways of reacting to it.
Well, Butcher is a fun character to play, because of the degree of internal conflict that wages within him. There is a war inside of Butcher, and to get to the dawn, you must first travel through the night. Butcher has both the tendency to be the villain and the hero, which makes him a hell of a lot of fun to play. Looking at season two, some of the shit that Butcher gets up to is truly diabolical. And I pray that I personally don't get the karma payback for what he does. I didn't think of it, I didn't write it, but I'm definitely guilty of doing it.
One thing I noticed about the “villain” of The Boys is that the bad guy was, really, the corporation behind the superheroes themselves and, to a certain extent, capitalism. What was playing in that theme like for you, and do you think it resonated especially well in 2019?
The great thing about the writing of The Boys is that there is a lot of gray area when it comes to the characters. It's not black and white. It's not just as simple as heroes and villains. What we come to understand more of in season two is the actual true power behind the superheroes, in terms of the corporation. That definitely resonates today, as it has historically. Audiences are a lot more switched onto the industrial-military complex that it's actually working at a level far higher than the highest office in the land. The Boys is certainly representative of that.
Do you see superheroes sticking around as the dominant cultural force for much longer? Or do you think that there's going to be a turn at some point?
It's an interesting question. It is difficult for me to see a point of super-saturation because I think audiences will continue to respond to quality. And if the quality movies within the superhero genre continue to sell, audiences will continue to watch them. Certainly when directors like Todd Phillips are putting out films of such high caliber, like Joker—which I know is not superhero movie per se, but certainly sitting in that universe—yeah, it's difficult to see an end to it. Within the landscape of American cinema, if you look back at the last 50 years, it's really traversed quite a bit of territory. It's gone from westerns to gangsters to superhero films. They're all really just an opportunity to explore morality tales.
You've been in a lot of big genre franchises, like Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and the MCU. Do you have a favorite genre that you've been a part of, or a favorite specific franchise?
To me, what defines a great experience, is the company as the people that I'm working with, and I've been very, very blessed. I think for me the best experiences I've had would definitely be Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and The Boys. When you're working for so long with a group of people and you become like a family, it elevates the experience above and beyond what you would normally experience when you're only working with a group for a relatively short amount of time.
Did it help with Lord of The Rings that you didn't need to travel relatively as far from home?
Well, actually—yes, we did shoot it in New Zealand, but I ended up traveling to the far reaches of the South Island and being flown into the most remote parts of the country that I'd never even been before. That was part of what made the experience so incredible.
Do you have anything that you'd like to see from Amazon's upcoming Lord of the Rings series?
Oh, wow. I mean, I haven't even thought about that. I couldn't possibly give some comment about it. But, as a fan of Tolkien, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what they do. And I would like to add that I'm thrilled that they're shooting in New Zealand because the character of Middle-earth is an indelible part of that world. It's really cool to have that continuity.
I'm sure you're probably a little tired of this question, but I have to ask, because just last night there was news that the next Star Trek movie might actually be happening once again. Do you know anything about that? Do you have another "Dammit, Jim" in you?
Mate, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that another Star Trek movie was happening, I'd be mortgage-free.
Fair enough. Is there a franchise that you would like to be a part of one day, like a Star Wars or Harry Potter?
If they were to make another one, I would love to be a part of any Blade Runner movie. For me, it's really about the story and the characters as much as who I'm working with. But there are certainly a plethora of directors who I would love the opportunity to work with them. You know, probably near the top of that list would be someone like Ridley Scott, James Mangold, Todd Phillips. Kathryn Bigelow.
Looking back at this year more broadly, what's the best thing that you've done?
If I had to pin it down... one of the coolest things that I did this year was surf Cloudbreak in Fiji.
And what's the best thing you've seen this year?
That's a very interesting question. I think the best thing I've seen is probably a generation of young people standing up and uniting behind Greta Thunberg and demanding that the generation that is currently running their lives stop to take some responsibility for future generations.
Are you feeling optimistic about 2020?
I think it's an interesting time, to tell you the truth. I said this before and I'll say it again, but to get to the dawn, we have to travel through the night. And I definitely feel like globally there's a tremendous amount of conflict at the moment, certainly politically in the States and obviously on the ground conflict seems to be never-ending certain areas of the world. But I remain wholly optimistic. I would like to believe that there is a growing sense of empowerment happening on a collective and an individual level. Mankind is at a threshold where we're well past the date where we need to take responsibility for our actions. It feels like the pendulum is going to start shifting the other way, and it's an exciting time to be alive.
Before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to say about your year?
There are two things that I want to say. One of my favorite quotes—and I'm going to paraphrase it—but it's from Hunter S. Thompson and it is "The difference between a professional player and a rabid fan; one is a performer in a harsh, unique corner of reality. The other is a cultist, a passive worshiper and an occasional sloppy emulator of the style that fascinates them." I spent 20 years thinking about that and 20 years working to be on the right side of that equation, sometimes with more success than others. When I was younger and first inspired to take this path and to be on this trajectory, I was a fan of the medium and also the art. The journey for me has been transitioning from a fan and into something else.
The other thing is just an anecdote. I once worked on a movie called Red with Ernest Borgnine, who was 92 at the time. And I asked him what the secret of his longevity was. And he looked at me, he smiled, and he said, "Well, I masturbate twice a day." I'm always looking to pick the brains of the elders and to learn where I can. So I'm not quite sure where to place that one, but I'm passing it on.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
It was a year of peak storytelling, cruel cancelations, and a whole lot of new.
Originally Appeared on GQ
