SPOILER alert:This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “Gen V, titled “Guardians of Godolkin,” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.
As a member of the “Gen V” cast, Chance Perdomo has gone through many on-set experiences specific to those in “The Boys” franchise: being repeatedly covered in fake blood and bodily fluids, shooting scenes with giant genitalia, and saying some truly filthy lines coming out of a superhero’s mouth. But Perdomo has another surprising connection to “The Boys.”
“I came into this as a fan of ‘The Boys,’ I actually had originally auditioned for Hughie, years ago.” I read it and I thought it was such a great script. And I was like, ‘Whether I get it or not, I still want to watch the show.’ Then I watched ‘The Boys’ and I think, ‘Wow this has never been done, it’s amazing’. So then to get Andre was such a blessing because I come into it and I get to enjoy the playground that is ‘The Boys’ universe.”
“The Boys” went on to cast Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, whom Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) recruits onto his anti-supe team The Boys, leaving “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” alum Perdomo open to play superhero college student Andre Anderson on spinoff “Gen V.”
At the end of “Gen V” Season 1, Perdomo thinks Godolkin U students Andre, Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Jordan (Derek Luh/London Thor) and Emma (Lizze Broadway)are even closer to “The Boys” than Perdomo has been before, as he believes that door-less medical facility they are trapped in is “somewhere in Vought Tower.”
“I believe it was the last season of ‘The Boys’ where Queen Maeve was trapped somewhere similar and I think it’s an all-white room like that,” Perdomo said. “I think it’s possibly a variation of one of those holding cells somewhere underground, under the tower. That’s what I hope because that’s gonna make for a kick-ass escape scene. We might need to recruit some help getting out from Mr. Billy Butcher. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”
Speaking of Butcher, Perdomo was a big fan of that mid-credits scene cameo Urban got in the “Gen V” finale, which followed a shocking appearance from Antony Starr’s Homelander and leads into the upcoming fourth season of “The Boys”: “That was such a kick-ass one-liner, as well. Just his face reveal and then he was like, ‘What a bunch of cunts.’ So perfect.”
But perhaps his favorite “Boys” cameo of the first season of “Gen V” came in Episode 6, “Jumanji,” when Jensen Ackles reprised his role as Soldier Boy for a dream sequence in Cate’s (Maddie Phillips) mind and made many, many euphemisms about female masturbation. “We spent a good couple of hours just sat there watching Jensen improv the most crazy, out-of-pocket lines to say, and I think maybe only 10% of those we managed to get through with a straight fucking face,” Perdomo said. “Excuse my French, but it was absolutely hilarious.”
In “Gen V” Season 2, which has already been picked up at Amazon, Perdomo hopes to explore the now shattered romantic relationship between Cate and Andre, as Andre struggles with figuring out who he is (amid the pressure of following in his father’s footsteps to become Polarity) and how much of his love for Cate, who has gone to the Vought dark side, might have just been her using her powers on him.
“How much can you trust his her words? He doesn’t know that he hasn’t been pushed before, right?” Perdomo said. “As her powers intensify, you can see that sometimes she can push without even speaking to the pushee. I think it’s mixed: he loves her but I think it’s quite tainted now, the murky circumstances of it all. I think he might even be questioning whether or not he does actually love her or whether she has pushed him to feel that way. There’s so many unanswered questions and if that thread continues to be pulled, I think that’ll lead to some great character development in Season 2.”
