Emilia Yu
The filming of season four of the hit Amazon Prime Video series The Boys wrapped a couple months ago, and we eagerly await the diabolical, satirical brilliance that captivated us in its first three seasons. Each member of the eponymous “Boys” in this darkly comedic superhero show is carefully adapted from comics to screen, with the actors having the freedom to make each character their own. We spoke with Tomer Capone, who portrays Frenchie, the impulsive yet charming weapons master and veteran Supe-killer, on his comprehensive approach to the character, his ideal superpowers, and crop tops.
Capone consulted the comics heavily to draw inspiration on how Frenchie would behave and move, and experimented with many mannerisms, some of which were more successful than others:
“I tried so many things from the drawings, from the comic book. I mean, physically, in the way Frenchie gets upset, the way he fights—I actually fell on my face the first time I tried to do this. There’s a volume with a very famous drawing of Frenchie jumping like a cat to attack some evil superheroes, and I tried to imitate it in the first season. It didn’t end up well. I ended up on the floor.”
Reflecting on the most important tenets of the show and how it affects his performance, Capone says, “This is us being led by one of the most amazing showrunners in the industry right now, Eric Kripke, who always reminds us, keep it grounded. Keep it grounded. The Boys is a grounded TV show. It comes from a comic, and you know, the comic book is crazy. The show is nuts. But our job is in this world to keep it as grounded and believable and emotional and interesting and mysterious as possible…[Frenchie] is the relief inside this chaotic, violent, crazy reality of the world of The Boys.”
The multi-dimensionality of Frenchie extends beyond personality and movement, and into his distinctive punk-rock wardrobe.
“Well, I’ll tell you a little story,” begins Capone. “In the second season I went into the trailer. I always have the coolest wardrobe, which I pitch to our amazing wardrobe crew before we start the new season. I will throw them a lot of pictures and a lot of ideas, a lot of stuff, and they will get me a mishmash of whatever it is…There was [a t-shirt] of a bunny, like a crazy skeleton with the bunny. They were hanging in the trailer. And I wore them, and I looked in the mirror and the Frenchie energy took over me and I just took a pair of scissors, and I cut it into a crop top. And I stand in front of the mirror and said, ‘Oh ho ho, we love this,’” he laughs.
“I went into set, I remember Eric Kripke coming to me and he says, ‘That’s a crop top. I can see your belly button.’ And I said, ‘Frenchie loves it.’ I don’t even know where I got the confidence to come with a crop top on set, just presenting my belly button to 40 people and say, ‘This is Frenchie.’”
When asked about his ideal superpower, Capone takes a beat to consider his response. He answers in two parts:
“First thing that comes to mind is something that I think I’ve said it before, but it sounds scary as well, to heal people. Like the ability to heal people. But that could be too much, probably. But that’s the right answer. And the selfish answer would be to either fly or teleport myself. Because I hate flying.”
Watch to the full conversation below:
Comments
Loading…