From showrunner Eric Kripke and based on the best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the eight-episode Amazon Prime Video original series The Boys is an irreverent look at what happens when the popular and influential superheroes abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good, and often need someone to cover up all of their dirty deeds and secrets for them. But when Hughie (Jack Quaid) suffers a devastating loss as a result of one Supe’s recklessness, he becomes so outraged that he teams up with Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and The Boys, in order to seek out their own brand of vigilante justice.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Karl Urban talked about the fun he’s having in playing Billy Butcher, why this story appealed to him, the changes from the comics, the cohesiveness of vision for the series, the unusual nature of filming a fight scene with a translucent person, just how crazy things get, the dynamic between Billy and Hughie, and whether viewers will feel differently about Billy, by the end of the season.

Collider:  This is definitely a wild show, and it seems like you’re having a total blast playing this character.

KARL URBAN:  Yeah, I am. I’m having so much fun playing this character. When I read the first episode, it was pretty clear to me that Billy Butcher was quite a trip and quite unlike anything I’d done before. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity.

What was your reaction, when you learned about what the story was, who this character would be, and just what this world would be? What did you think of it all?

URBAN:  I personally have become so accustomed to these tentpole event movies, and these big superhero movies, and when I read the script, I thought, “Wait a minute, this is fresh. This is something new. I haven’t seen this done like this before.” It supposes a world where superheroes exist, but what then? What if your version of Superman was actually a mass murderer, or a psychopath, or a rapist, in a really dark way? And what if the only people that knew about it was this group of criminals, and a kid who works in a TV shop? That was a fascinating place to start. Thematically, it’s about a story about those with absolute power, going up against the powerless.

Even with the crazy things that happen in this show, this is a bit of a toned down version from what we get in the comics. When you got to check out these comics, were you surprised that it had been changed?

URBAN:  Oh, yeah, definitely, and it had to be that way. There are some elements of the comic that are just not palatable for television, at all, and certainly not, if you want to reach a wider audience, which is the goal of any television. When you spent so much time and energy making something, you want to be seen by as people as possible. Eric Kripke, our showrunner and writer, did a really marvelous job of transferring the source material into a different medium. He’s delivering something new, but at the same time, he’s honoring the genesis and delivering the very essence of what Garth Ennis’ graphic novel was.

What was it like to have Dan Trachtenberg direct the first episode and set up everything for this series, and then having your showrunner, Eric Kripke, direct the season finale?

URBAN:  From my perspective, Dan was great to work with him. He knew how to move the camera, in order to help tell the story. He was thoughtful and efficient. He had the responsibility of really establishing the tone of the entire series. Eric Kripke was also there on set, every day, during the pilot. That, to me, was the most important thing because there’s a real cohesiveness about the vision. And Eric is not only a fantastic writer and very smart guy, but he’s also very approachable and very collaborative. Jack Quaid and myself would often go to him with a thousand ideas, and to his credit, he was like, “Yeah, sure, let’s give it a go.” The fun thing, in watching it is that what you see is a real combination, mostly of what was scripted, but then with our contributions. We took Eric’s script and made it ours, and then he took it back and made it into something else.

I can’t imagine that you ever would have pictured yourself having a fight scene with a translucent person. What was that like to shoot? Were very technical challenges of doing something like that?

URBAN:  It was crazy! I’m very grateful that the government authorities didn’t see me fighting nothing because I would have been incarcerated and in a medical institution. That had to look absolutely bizarre. Seriously, it was a challenge. When you engage in a movie fight, it’s a piece of choreography. It’s a dance. So, to suddenly be doing that dance without a dance partner, makes it a hundred times more difficult. You really do have to imagine everything that’s coming at you, and react and respond to it. It was probably one of the more difficult things that I had to do in the show. What we wanted to do is deliver something that people haven’t seen before. If we can continue to be able to do that, then we’re good. The challenge is to take the superhero genre and turn it on its head. That’s hopefully one of the things that’s gonna be the attraction, but then it’s got to be the characters that really engage you.

What’s been the craziest thing that you’ve had to do, or that you’ve had to react to or be witness to, on the show?

URBAN:  Inevitably there were email chains and phone conversations that would get to the point where I would feel like, “Hey, this is crossing a line here, that is probably a bridge too far. It’s a bridge too far for me, personally.” Sometimes Eric would acquiesce, but other times, he would just say, “Let’s just give it a go. If it doesn’t work, we’re not gonna use it.” So, it basically an exercise in trust. But from what I’ve seen, I think they’ve just done a really great job of finding the right tone, making it edgy but still palatable.

There’s a very interesting dynamic between Billy Butcher and Hughie Campbell, especially because their whole relationship starts on lies. When it comes to that relationship, what do you most enjoy about exploring that dynamic, and working with Jack Quaid on it?

URBAN:  I love working with Jack. We’re so different, not only as people, but as characters, and that is why the chemistry really works, on screen. It’s the odd couple. For me, the material that I enjoyed the most was always when I was exploiting and manipulating Hughie. Billy lies to him and tries to get him to do what he wants him to do, but there’s also a genuine bond that forms. Billy Butcher really thinks of Hughie as a brother, which adds an emotional complexity that takes Billy Butcher off guard, a little bit. Up until now, he’s been very emotionally shut down because he needs to be that guy, in order to do his job.

This character seems like someone who’s been wounded by life, and he carries around a variety of battle scars with him, wherever he goes. Will we learn more about why he is the way that he is?

URBAN:  Oh, yeah, definitely. You’re gonna learn the full story. You’ll learn the backstory of Billy Butcher and what has turned him into the man he is today. As fun as this character is to play – and he is fun, he’s a rascal, he’s Machiavellian, he’s duplicitous, he’s a liar and a cheat, he’s wonderfully charismatic, but also brutally tough and scary – at the heart of it, there’s this tragedy, which is the tragedy of love. It’s something that I hope really endears Billy to an audience.

By the time that we get to the end of the season, will we feel different about Billy Butcher than we did when we first met him?

URBAN:  That’s a really good question. I think you will because you will come to a deeper understanding of him. I don’t feel like he’s gonna be harshly judged for what he does. If we do our job right, then it’s gonna be thought-provoking, and an audience will go, “If I was in that situation, what would I do? Would I just lie down and take the injustice, or would I stand up and fight? Even though I’ve got no powers, I’m gonna fight against the most powerful in the world.” That is, essentially, Billy Butcher, and ultimately for me, in my opinion, that’s a very admirable quality.

The Boys is available to stream at Amazon Prime Video.