You came back from Novocaine and you were in full action hero mode.
Like the way he was shooting guns and stuff and looked cool as shit.
It wasn't Huey, but it looked cool as shit.
Hey, I'm Karl Urban.
I'm Jack Quaid.
And this is Inquiring Minds with Esquire.
Are you both ready?
Yeah.
What is your most Kiwi trait that you just can't shake?
You know what?
It might be walking around barefoot in streets and anywhere.
We do it a lot in New Zealand.
You don't see it so much overseas.
But yeah, I'm going to go barefoot a lot anywhere, everywhere I can okay yeah, that feels like a better way of life.
You know what it feels more?
Promoting um, lord of the rings, peter jackson, was walking around paris and, like the hotels and stuff, doing these interviews completely barefoot.
I just thought that he was like in solidarity with the hobbits.
Yeah right, how did carl become your safe word during the lucy whale scene?
First of all, it was Carl, Carl Carl.
It was.
We were in the middle of Lake Ontario and it was a really stormy day.
They're filming us from a helicopter.
You say, by the way guys, if anyone's feeling unsafe for any reason, the safe word is Carl Carl, Carl.
Just yell that.
I don't think I've ever gotten rocked that much in my life.
I started the scene sitting down.
If you notice, I'm actually like kind of like crouching in the scene and I have my hands here.
That's because I was essentially just getting like punched in the ass by the boat nonstop.
And the engine has revved up to the highest.
There's the wind and poor Jack's up the front yelling, I don't hear him.
No, of course.
We finish the run and Jack is like ghost face white.
You have a photo on your phone of me like recovering, maybe a little bit sick.
Yeah.
You're taking the photo and Laz is looking at you in the photo like, don't take this photo.
He's like, Laz is like, I'm like, I'm me.
And Laz is like.
Like looking at me like.
Don't make this the thumbnail.
What is a role you almost didn't take but are glad that you did?
So there was a hot minute there where I had another project that was lining up to compete with Star Trek Beyond and there was no script that we could read, and so It's pretty important.
I had to pick one or the other.
And so it was really my conversation with Justin Lin, when he described what it was that he wanted to do with the character of Bones.
And then I just thought, you know what?
I would be remiss.
I would be kicking myself if I didn't get one more ride with those guys.
And I'm so glad I did.
What's the wildest moment you had while stunt training for Hunger Games?
Oh, God.
I was 19 at the time that I filmed that.
That was my first real major movie.
I'd never done any stunt training before.
I think that's where I really got the basics of you know how to throw a movie punch, how to plant your feet in a very specific way.
And that was a surreal experience.
The people that trained us for that were the people from 8711, Chad Stahelski, who has then gone on to direct all of the John Wick movies.
What has been your favorite stunt to learn?
Mine was shooting the Born Supremacy in Moscow.
They told me to do a reverse 180 in a Mercedes G-Wagon and then let me do it.
And that was a lot of fun.
I can't look at a Mercedes G-Wagon and not think of doing something highly illegal in it.
I just remember the first time I was ever in a car shooting a scene with the boys for you.
You were like watch this shit.
You just went rogue and just sped.
But you're amazing at it.
You're amazing at all the vehicle stuff.
I think mine, just the The first one that's coming to mind is Novocaine.
It's an action movie I did.
My character cannot feel pain.
He has a genetic disorder where he can't.
And there was a shot I'm just very proud of.
I get like punched, I get slammed into a fridge, then slammed onto a table and the camera's with me the whole time and the biggest trick with that is just not wincing or showing pain on your face or else it kind of blows the whole premise.
And then i got back to shooting the boys and i remember john koyama had to like remind me to like wince and yell and like right and i was, i was too locked into that.
You came back from, nova came and you were in full action hero, like the way he was shooting guns and stuff and looked cool as shit.
It wasn't Huey, but it looked cool as shit.
I remember, I think they told me they were like, just lame it up a little bit.
Now we're back to Huey Campbell.
Who would win in a fight?
Butcher from the Boys or Eomir from Lord of the Rings?
We all have to remember, Carl started at Lord of the Rings.
This man has the nerd cred for life.
I think like human butcher, no powers, no weapons maybe AMM might take him down.
But super powered butcher with the lasers and the tentacles, I think he'd be pretty hard to beat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's something people get wrong about you?
People don't expect me to be as tall as I am.
The amount of times I've met people where they're just like, holy hell.
Not many people know this, but right throughout shooting the five seasons of The Boys, I had these little kind of lifts that I would insert into the heel of Butcher's boots every time I had a two-shot with Jack.
You can't go barefoot on this show.
You can't.
Because there was such a height discrepancy, and I nicknamed them Quados.
Yeah.
Where's McQuados?
Bring McQuados.
As the former president of the Bad Movie Club, what's one movie you will always defend?
There are some movies out there that are just so bad, they're good.
I've had the privilege of watching a lot in my time.
I started with my friends.
Every Thursday or something, at lunch we would all meet in like one teacher's classroom and just watch terrible movies.
I'm talking The Room, I'm talking Troll 2.
I don't think we were allowed to watch The Room in school.
There's a lot of you know explicit scenes in that.
I just watched this movie, samurai cop.
It's so bad, it's so good, it's great, like it's just.
I can go on a tirade about this for a while, but i'm a big fan of bad movies.
You have played gods warriors and anti-heroes.
What's your undercover soft trait?
I'm a father of two beautiful boys, so when you're a parent you know you have a lot of compassion and tender love and care, and that does not necessarily align with all of this sort of action.
Heavy action anti-hero content that I've been doing in The Boys.
I think that the nicest guys often play the best bad guys.
Bad guys are fun.
They get to do and say the things that we can never really do in real life.
And, you know, they're a lot of fun to play.
What's one fan theory from The Boys you actually buy into?
There was a fan theory season one.
The first time we shot the boys, it was very hot.
It was like a Toronto summer.
You know, a lot of flies got into our shots.
So Eric would do this thing where he, if there's a fly buzzing around us, he added a sound effect like a, like a, like a That we will shine by ourselves.
And fans thought that we were seeding a character from the comics named Swatto, who did eventually show up in the show.
Every time I saw a fly appear in something, there was like an accompanying sound effect.
I would think they were setting it up for something as well.
So I would buy into that.
It's false, but I would.
What's a line that fans recite back to you most often?
I get a few.
Daddy's home is definitely one of them.
That's good.
Fucking diabolical.
That's another one.
Fucking diabolical.
I remember when you came up with that.
Yeah.
It was a line that you had, but then you were like, that's a catchphrase.
And then it just got into everything.
But it worked.
You knew.
You knew right away.
And there's one that I won't mention here that I get asked about a lot.
What's the most over-the-top romantic gesture you have pulled off.
It was Valentine's Day and I was able to hire a mariachi band.
I wasn't able to be there on Valentine's Day.
So they just were out in the middle of the street and she could just see them.
And she went down and just enjoyed a couple of songs and called me.
Called me when they showed up and like is this a mariachi band on, like in the middle of our street and the whole neighborhood heard it.
But uh, all good, i didn't know.
You could just hire a mariachi band and that's a.
It's a back pocket thing i want to maybe continue with.
I really, i really did, i really did a mariachi band in your back.
Which celebrity were you surprised to learn was a fan of your work?
I was at a party once, and I was just in a group of people having a conversation.
All of a sudden, in walks Tom Holland in the conversation, and he just was like, oh, the boys.
I love the boys.
I was like, Spider-Man knows about the boys.
Sam Rockwell loves the show.
Like, I met him once.
A lot of people I geek out about.
Snoop?
Snoop Dogg likes the show.
Obama's pretty great.
It's pretty hard to top.
Obama's pretty hard to top.
In this rapid round, we will have 30 seconds to sound off.
Let's go.
First thing you did this morning.
I woke up.
Last film you saw in the theater.
Oh, one battle after another.
One talent you wish you had.
I wish I could tightrope.
Most irrational fear.
Spiders.
Last book you finished?
Devil in the White City.
Your dream dinner guest?
Harrison Ford.
Last person who left you starstruck?
Oh, God, Ray Sehorne.
Last night at the Saturn Awards.
Go-to excuse to leave an awards show early?
I've drunk too much.
Great.
One thing you always forget to pay?
Hair comb.
Playing the hero or playing the villain?
Villain.
Or Hero.
Oh, what?
I'd go Hero, too.
Not right.
Not right.
Hey, thank you so much for watching, and don't forget to watch The Boys on Prime Video.
Season 5, the final season, or as we like to say, the finally season.
Yeah, we say that.
Yeah.
