Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy Is The Main Character Of The Boys Season 3
Here's what we've learned about the character Jensen Ackles is playing in The Boys season 3.
This article is more than 2 years old
The majority of the brutal and sadistic superheroes Amazon’s The Boys have focused on so far are obvious clones of DC Comics characters such as The Seven, whose elite members are mostly based on DC’s iconic Justice League members. But apparently, that’s going to change in Season 3 with Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy arriving center stage.
The Boys‘ creator and showrunner Eric Kripke sat down with Vanity Fair last week and explained why Jensen Ackles’ character will be so central to Season 3. He said the upcoming season will probe deeper into the alternate history of The Boys‘ America and how it leads to the creation of the supes. Kripke says that Soldier Boy — who in both the comics and the show is based on Marvel Comics’ Captain America — will give The Boys the chance to examine the “toxic masculinity” that helps to make the supes who and what they are.
It was a year ago this month when we first learned — via the actor’s Instagram — that Jensen Ackles had been cast in The Boys. Captioned that he keeps wondering what he’ll do after the close of Supernatural, the video shows Ackles rubbing his chin pensively as a copy of a trade paperback volume of The Boys is tossed to him from off-camera. Now, we have a first look at the star in character.
Of course, The Boys will not be Kripke’s first time working with Jensen Ackles. Kripke created the fantasy drama Supernatural which just had its final curtain call last year. Ackles played his signature role of Dean Winchester on the show, a guy who’s pretty familiar with toxic masculinity. Ackles isn’t entirely done with the world of Supernatural either. In June, news broke that Ackles would star in an upcoming prequel series, though without Supernatural co-star Jared Padalecki — something Padalecki wasn’t very happy about.
In spite of their past collaboration, Kripke said initially Jensen Ackles wasn’t on his radar at all for the part of Soldier Boy. Kripke told Vanity Fair that — largely because Soldier Boy is a supe from World War II — he had been looking at actors older than Ackles. He said the casting came about while the two were chatting on the phone and Kripke was complaining about how Soldier Boy had proven so difficult to cast. Kripke said as soon as Ackles received the script, he was sold.
In June, Jensen Ackles posted a workout video while he trained for his upcoming appearance in The Boys. He took the opportunity to tag current and former Arrowverse actors Grant Gustin (The Flash) and Stephen Amell (Arrow), saying he was “beginning to understand the struggle.” Channeling Danny Glover’s Lethal Weapon hero, Ackles also suggested the possibility that he’s “getting too old for this crap.”
Not long after, we got our first look at Jensen Ackles in full Soldier Boy regalia, as seen at The Hollywood Reporter. The look differs significantly from the Soldier Boy of the source material, whose outfit reflects the predictable red, white, and blue color scheme of Captain America. With the exception of his red gloves and boots, Ackles’ Soldier Boy costume looks more like the outfit worn by Chris Evans in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, but married to the color scheme of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.
While we don’t know the exact date when we’ll be able to see Jensen Ackles, Karl Urban, Anthoy Starr, Erin Moriarty, and more in Season 3 of The Boys, it’s expected to arrive on Amazon Prime Video sometime in 2022.
