Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The Boys.
The Boyshave returned and are showing no signs of letting up any time soon! With the long-awaited finale of the hit Prime Video series' third season premiering last week, as well as the recent confirmation of a Season 4, it looks like we’ll be getting even more of our favorite irreverent, disturbing, and often downright nasty supes who couldn’t be further from heroic — as well as the group of resident misfits the show is named for who are determined to hold them accountable for previous and current misdeeds. While the superhero team known as the Seven has seen its numbers dwindling thanks to Starlight’s (Erin Moriarty) resignation, Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott)’s apparent “death,” and the almost-certain demise of Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), it seems that Homelander (Antony Starr) has even fewer allies on his side these days — but at least one supe who’s still ticking is A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) himself, though at what cost? As the aftermath of Herogasm revealed, A-Train was saved from almost certain death by a rather unexpected heart donor — the overzealous, violent Blue Hawk (Nick Wechsler), who died at A-Train’s very hands.
On the heels of the Season 3 finale, Collider had the opportunity to catch up with Usher about his character’s arc this time around, as well as the storylines he’s always had on his personal wishlist for A-Train in potential future seasons. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Usher talks about the discussions that were had about A-Train’s journey before the season even started, the unexpected result of that emotional Herogasm scene he got to play with co-starJack Quaid(and what it means for A-Train and Hughie moving forward), what A-Train now owes to Vought for saving his life, and more.
Collider: I’ve heard you guys are preparing to start filming pretty soon. So is that still the case?
JESSIE T. USHER: Yeah, we’re gearing up. I’m starting to think now of what I’m going to pack.
A-Train’s storyline this season has been really interesting, and it’s been great to see you get to really explore more intricacies of his character. When did you find out what the storyline for him was going to be this season? Was it something that came up in discussions with Eric Kripke, or before you got scripts?
USHER: I learned along the way. When we were in pre-production, before the scripts were written, I had a conversation with Eric, and he gave me the broadest explanation of where they were going to go with social injustices. And I was like, “Okay, okay, this sounds good.” But we had no detail. The first three episodes, you don’t really get into that yet. You just have this identity crisis moment and this desperate attempt to reconnect with… It was all very fictitious, and it was very surface level. It wasn’t until we were into those episodes that I started to realize what A-Train’s real story arc would be, and that’s when the conversation gets going. At that point, Eric was still on set, and we were still talking a lot about how A-Train feels about certain things, and the situation he’s going to be in.
The way that Eric gets your input on what he’s thinking is to tell you what’s happening to the people around you because of your storyline. So he’ll say things like, “We’re trying to figure out how he can get redemption for his brother getting injured.” He won’t really say how that happens or how it relates to me, but he’ll get my feedback on it based on something that happens to my brother, or a conversation I’ll have with Ashley. He wants to bounce an idea off of someone else to see how A-Train feels about it, and then the story plays out from there. It’s a very interesting process.
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One of the scenes this season that really struck me for A-Train is what actually happens at Herogasm. There’s something crazy going on in the background of every scene, but it’s a big emotional moment between your character and Hughie. In the midst of everything going on, it’s a pretty important conversation that the two of them have. Did you and Jack have any discussions about what you wanted to bring to that moment?
USHER: None. None whatsoever. And I also think that we both had prepared the scene differently than the way that it turned out. It sounds strange, it sounds weird, but during that scene, during that exchange with Jack, we didn’t see anything else. It was like nothing else existed. It was a very locked-in moment. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I never planned on it being emotional in that way. It was just something that happened from the other side of the camera. When I was talking to Jack about it and I see him getting worked up about it, then I get worked up about it.
It just built into this whole thing, and I’m glad that it ended abruptly, and it didn’t get a chance to play out, because that’s not really the setting. It needs to really go. I hope that we get to dive back into it later. I mean, I’m sure we will, now. At that moment, A-Train realizes, “Oh shoot, this dude punched me in the face, and he’s superhero strong.” So there’s so many other elements that are involved now. It’s a lot more than just what Hughie was trying to get out of it. Now, A-Train has some questions too. I can’t wait to see how that’s going to go.
The aftermath of Herogasm comes to a head in terms of the conflict between Blue Hawk and A-Train. It’s a complex scene, you could think about it from the perspective of the graphicness of it, but there’s definitely some emotion there. What did you feel was fueling A-Train’s mindset? Is it him acting on behalf of his brother? Is it because he doesn’t think he has anything to lose at this point? Is it a combination of those things? What was your take on it?
USHER: I feel like it wasn’t a very premeditated moment. I don’t think A-Train even thought that it was going to go that far, and this happens every single time A-Train makes a big decision. He only thinks about the first part of it. He never thinks about parts 2, 3, 4, 5. It’s only just part A and that’s it. I think he was just angry enough to say, “I don’t care who sees this. I’m going to go and get this guy to apologize. He’s going to say sorry. I’m going to make him pay for it.” I don’t know if he ever thought that he was going to kill him or that he might die in the process. None of that crossed his mind.
But then when he gets there, and he says something to Blue Hawk, Blue Hawk’s not even paying attention to what he’s talking about. I think that raised that moment of looking at this guy in his face. It’s just not going the way that he planned, and he just snaps. He snaps, and he gets a word or two out, but he never considers the fact that like, “If I run this guy into the ground, I could die too,” because then he would never have ran him into the ground. He might have slammed him. He might have fought him a little bit, but he would never have risked dying over that. It wasn’t life or death for him. I don’t think it was that big.
Unfortunately, even having the weight of what it is, even having his brother being paralyzed, almost dying, and knowing this guy’s a maniac, he’s out of control, there was none of that was a part of A-Train’s psyche in that moment. It was just, “I’m going to walk up here, and I’m going to show my strength. I’m going to get this guy to make me feel better about the situation that I’m in.” And it just didn’t work, and he lost it for a second.
I saw a lot of fans after that episode wondering if A-Train was dead. Obviously, we find out that’s not the case. Vought has saved him, but there is a surprising twist to what happens when he comes out of the surgery, and he finds out how he has survived. What is A-Train’s mindset going to be heading into the next season? He feels like he’s got a different weight on him now after these last couple of episodes.
USHER: Well, here’s the thing. A-Train has a very in-depth understanding about how Vought operates. He was working the underground, inside, under-the-table side of Vought for a long time. So he knows what this means. If you listen to what Ashley tells him in the hospital, she’s implying, 100%, that there is a debt there that has to be paid. In that moment, he’s realizing, “Yeah, I have a second chance at life. Yeah, you guys gave me a heart. I’m still here. But now my life is yours.” That’s what it feels like.
Ashley’s telling him, “Yeah, we’re going to put you back in your old suit. We have this idea that you’re going to do. We have this that you’re going to do. This is what’s going to happen.” You know what I mean? It’s never like, “We have these ideas. What do you think?” It’s, “Now that you’re alive, now that we’ve given you this heart, here’s what you’re going to do with it.” I think that really scares him.
With this show, the sky is pretty much the limit in terms of what we can possibly see, but is there anything on your personal wishlist for A-Train? Any potential storylines you’d want to do in a future season?
USHER: Yeah, man, I want to see A-Train faced against… not faced against, necessarily. I want to see him just interact with a character who views the world the same way as him, to see if [by] seeing it from an external point of view, he realizes how screwed up he is or not. I think looking in the mirror can only take you so far, especially for him. So I think it would be interesting to either introduce a character or to explore the past of a character that we already know, which will then allow him to see himself in someone else because we haven’t seen that yet.
I also think it would be interesting to have him just relate to some of the other characters. He hasn’t had many moments to speak with Mother’s Milk or… The only time he ever really saw Kimiko was when she was slamming her head in the railroad tracks. He’s never really spoken to Frenchie about anything. I feel like it would open his eyes to a lot more to be able to just have a conversation with more characters from The Boys' side, so he can see how he’s viewed outside of Vought. I think it would open a lot of doors for him.
All three seasons ofThe Boysare now available to stream on Prime Video.
