Yahoo News Chace Crawford Gets Weird on ‘The Boys’: ‘I Was Starving for It’
Four seasons in, Amazon Prime’s “The Boys” has gone to some truly wild places — from its stylized hyperviolence to last season’s musical number. Based on the comic book from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, about the titular gang looking to bring down Vought Industries and the selfish superheroes who are revered, the newest season somehow manages to one up itself yet again.
Case in point: In Season 4’s premiere Antony Starr’s terrifying Homelander orders Chace Crawford’s The Deep to give A-Train (Jesse Usher) a blow job. With a shocked look, The Deep goes over, kneels down and says “Sex is just a spectrum. Right, bro?”
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Over Zoom, Crawford recalled filming that scene. “[Showrunner Eric] Kripke was directing that episode, so we got a great half day on that scene because there’s a lot of movement,” Crawford told IndieWire with a laugh. “It was so funny the way he was directing me and the scene. God, it was so funny.” He added about The Deep’s vocabulary: “They did put a lot of ‘bros’ in there this year.”
Over past seasons, The Deep has been a conundrum of a character. Much of the show’s commentary on MeToo happens because of The Deep assaulting Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and his own assault at the hands of a fan. For a character that’s so despicable in many ways, The Deep is also pathetic in a way that makes it hard to fully despise him. Plus, he’s very funny, even if he doesn’t know it.
Of course, much of this is due to Crawford’s performance, a take that is equal parts hilarious and also plays into the neediness of the character, his desperation to feel as if he belongs. For an actor, who already had a once-in-a-lifetime experience portraying Nate Archibald on The CW’s “Gossip Girl,” playing The Deep has been another rare treat, one that’s allowed him to evolve as an actor.
While the connective tissue between the two characters might seem tenuous, it’s not unlike his “Gossip Girl” co-star Penn Badgley’s progression from playing Dan Humphrey, thee Gossip Girl, to his stalker serial killer Joe Goldberg on “You.” Nate Archibald is a completely un-self-aware himbo who ends up running a media empire; The Deep, an equally un-self-aware himbo who has gills.
Being able to parody that is something that’s allowed for Crawford to grow as an actor and explore different sides of his craft. “It’s been tremendous for me personally as an actor to get to do something so different,” he said. “The second I read the script and the sides, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I know this guy. I got a great take on this. Please let me do it.’ I mean, to have a creator like Eric Kripke. The show’s driven by these characters and he wanted to humanize them even though they’re these awful people. We all live in the gray area in that spectrum as opposed to the black and white. It is just such a blessing to be able to showcase a different side of myself, to have range and to have fun in the dark moments and the comedy to show that side as well.”
This season, Crawford gets even more to add to his repertoire. In the past seasons, The Deep has primarily operated as Homelander’s lackey, as is clearly shown in the aforementioned blow job scene. However, as Crawford described it, The Deep leans more into “becoming a bully” this season, as he harnesses his aggression into something dark. Much of this also comes into play because of Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), a new member of the Seven, who emboldens him in that aggression.
Crawford loved working with Heyward and getting to explore The Deep’s darker side. “All he really wanted to do was get back in The Seven,” he said. “All he cared about was his identity crisis being back in that secure blanket, his identity as a famous superhero. I was really hoping for a dark turn. It’s fun to lean into that and see The Deep be unhinged and take what he’s seen Homelander do to him and pass on that trauma and become the bully himself is interesting.”
Much of Crawford’s filming is within the Vought world and Starr’s Homelander and Usher’s A-Train are two of the actors who he works with the most on the sprawling set. And he cannot gush enough about how much he loves working with and learning from these actors. “We’ve become so close and have such a great rapport especially with Anthony and The Deep. Those characters are so funny together. Anthony brings an intensity to the work and we find it in the choreography and then to find those little moments even in rehearsal, we find something funny.”
He also can’t speak highly enough about Kripke who he adores working with on The Deep each season. “My favorite is when Eric is on set directing to have him there with his vision. He’s just really good at directing you in a million different ways. I love working with Eric and he’s super open to ideas. And if it’s obviously not working, he’ll tell you exactly why and what needs to be done. It’s a very collaborative feel and there’s no fear of [having to] impress anyone,” he said.
Being able to collaborate, especially on this season, allowed Crawford to go to some new emotional places with The Deep as he navigates two very different relationships with Sister Sage and fan favorite Ambrosias. Yes, his octopus lover is back. Filming with Ambrosias, Crawford described it as very silly.
“They have a real octopus, I mean a rubber one,” he said. “I’m in my underwear and it’s hard for me not to laugh because the lines are so silly. I have to play it so straight. This is your mistress and you’re in love with her. And they sprinkle water. I’m like, ‘Oh, water in a bed is just disgusting.’ I’m like, ‘This just can’t get out of this fast enough.’ I think even for the crew and people, there’s so much blood and intense stuff going on in other corners of the show, I just hear everyone laughing behind Video Village.”
Crawford teased that he even got a “‘Marriage Story’ type rage” scene a la Adam Driver’s highly memed marital argument from the film. As for the relationship with Sister Sage, all Crawford will say is that he may never be able to eat a bloomin onion again, despite The Deep’s love of junk food. (Crawford’s favorite is Sour Patch Kids mixed with popcorn at the movie theater).
Crawford had long thought that being on a superhero show meant he’d get to try his hand at stunts. “As The Deep, I thought, ‘Great, I’m going to do the superhero show. I’m going to be in the water. I’m going to be doing all this cool stone work.’ I never ever gotten anything,” he said with a laugh.
The Season 4 premiere changes that as The Deep, A-Train, and Black Noir are ordered by Homelander to kill a group of men with bats. “The bad stuff at the beginning was kind of eerie for me because it’s like they had real actors, but then they had these dolls made and it was really fucked up. It was the first time I really had some blood go and it was intense.” As the season continues, Crawford gets to try his hand at some other stunts as well.
Despite the fame that came with playing a hot rich guy on “Gossip Girl,” playing a deranged octopus fucking superhero brought him the kinds of opportunities he’d always been looking for. “For me, I was starving for it,” he said. “‘Gossip Girl’ was one thing, but when I read it right away, ‘The Boys’ script, these roles don’t come around that often. The opportunity to really bust out and show a different side and to do comedy and something dark as well is just amazing. And now I’m getting a lot of love and looks from comedy and dark comedies that I’ve really always wanted to do.”
One of those projects was “Reunion,” a dark comedy he did with Billy Magnussen (a long time friend) and Nina Dobrev, which was released in April. He’ll also be starring in Magnussen’s directorial debut “The Ridge.” Even though he has other stuff in the pipeline, he says he’d do “five more seasons” of “The Boys” in a heartbeat, because he has such a blast doing the show.
With every silly one-liner or errant “bro” murmured, The Deep has brought Crawford to exactly where he’s always wanted to be.
“The Boys” is streaming now on Prime Video.
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