Jack Quaid basically only had the opportunity to play The Boys’ Hughie Campbell as a reactive character throughout its first two seasons. One of only a handful of characters on the series without super powers (“supes”), Hughie works with The Boys to infiltrate the nefarious Vought International corporation and its ties to the Seven, a team of “supes” with an often questionable moral compass. His gentle, nice demeanor — some would say bland — attracted the attention of “supe” Starlight, a.k.a. Annie January (Erin Moriarty), but Hughie’s native insecurities always seemed to bubble under the surface.
But in The Boys season three, all that changed.
Hughie and Butcher (Karl Urban) experiment with V, the drug known for producing superhuman abilities within average humans, and their journey is not without side effects. Hughie’s newfound abilities of strength and teleportation (just without clothes) provide Quaid perfect opportunities to blend his natural gift for comedy with a deeper, darker side of Hughie. It also sets Hughie and Annie on a collision course, potentially creating a rift between the two from which they might not recover.
Season three becomes Quaid’s best work in the series to date. He soars with the darker side of Hughie’s insecurity-ridden personality and laces Hughie’s dalliance with V with all of the very real longings of a drug addict. Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Quaid talks about how Hughie has changed over the initial three seasons of The Boys. He talks about the opportunity to play a character who teleports and spends a good amount of time in the nude. He also talks about working with co-star Karl Urban with whom Quaid shares most of his scenes.
The Boys streams exclusively on Amazon Prime.
