The Boys Season 3 Explores How Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy Led to the Reign of Superheroes

Between seasons two and three of The Boys there have been two major headlines about the hit Amazon Prime TV series, the first that Supernatural star Jensen Ackles had joined the cast and also that it had been nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards. Speaking in a new interview, series creator and showrunner Eric Kripke opened up about Ackles' being added to the cast and how their using his character to tell the full story of the new season. Ackles takes on the part of Soldier Boy in the show, an analogue for Marvel's Captain America in the original comics, and seemingly the starting point for supes in The Boys TV show.

"Season 3 delves a lot more into the history of how we got here through this character of Soldier Boy," Kripke revealed to Vanity Fair. "We were able to dig into both the history of the country and also really look at toxic masculinity, and masculine roles, and what a sh-t-show that's overall caused. This whole fu-cking, independent Marlboro man thing."

Kripke also opened up about the circumstances of Ackles' casting in the series, which reunited them after their time together on The CW's Supernatural, revealing that they had previously been looking at actors much older than he was.

"We had written Soldier Boy long before I cast Jensen. The majority of the guys we were looking at for that part were actually quite older than Jensen," he added. "Because it's a World War II hero. But it's so funny how these things sometimes happen. Jensen called me and I'm not on the show anymore but we keep in touch and text every so often. But he happened to call me and we were just chatting and I'm like well I'm prepping Season 3 of the show, and I have this character Soldier Boy, and it was a real pain in the to cast, and I haven't really found anyone. Hey, wait a minute, do you want to do it? I sent him the script, and he's like, oh my God, I totally want to do this. Less than a week later, he was cast. He just happened to call that day, is one of the big reasons he got that part."

Both seasons of The Boys are now streaming on Amazon Prime. It's unclear when the third season will premiere but cameras are rolling on the all-new episodes.