Jack Quaid Discusses His Role as Hughie in ‘The Boys’: “I love playing this character and I love that I get so much time with him”

Jack Quaid is widely recognized for portraying Hugh “Hughie” Campbell in The Boys, as well as for his extensive voice acting roles such as Brad Boimler in Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Clark Kent / Superman in My Adventures with Superman, and Earth-65 Peter Parker / Lizard in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

His role in The Boys stands out as his most prominent, and given our focus on the series here at Fiction Horizon, we discovered a compelling interview Quaid recently conducted for The Daily Beast’s “The Last Laugh” podcast.

During the interview, several intriguing topics were covered. We’ve previously highlighted Quaid’s comments about being labeled a “nepo baby” due to his famous parents, and his insights on the political themes in The Boys. Additionally, he discussed his role in the series as Hughie Campbell.

As mentioned, the interview in question was for The Daily Beast’s “The Last Laugh” podcast, where Jack Quaid discussed various topics. At one point, he was asked to discuss his character and its evolution, to which he responded:

Hughie is the first character you’ve gotten to play over the course of many years. How do you think he has changed since the show began? Because he’s obviously been through a lot.

That’s an understatement for sure. I love playing this character and I love that I get so much time with him. And I think Hughie’s a really interesting character, because he very much grounds the show. The show is insane and full of blood and superheroes doing very naughty things. And it took me a while to kind of understand my role, in a more meta sense, on the show. I’m the guy that has to react to the craziness in a realistic way—or as realistic as you can get on a show like this—in order to ground all of the insanity.

But I think he’s grown a lot. In this season we get into his abandonment issues. His mom left him when he was a kid, and now she’s back because his dad is sick. I got to work with Simon Pegg again. And he plays my dad on the show because in the original comic books Hughie, my character is modeled after Simon Pegg, which they did not get his permission for, by the way.

When did he realize that?

I think he’s just a nerd and he saw the comics and he saw his face, and instead of suing like a normal person, he was like, ‘Ahh, sick!’ So I want to thank him, because I think the show exists because Simon Pegg didn’t sue. But I got to work with him and Rosemarie Dewitt, who plays my mom, and they’re both incredible, so wonderful and so giving. I learned so much from both of them. And I’m going to cherish those days for the rest of my life.

Source: The Daily Beast

What are your thoughts on Hughie and Jack Quaid’s portrayal? Do you find the character complex and layered, or do you think Quaid’s perspective is influenced because he portrays the character? Share your opinion with us in the comments below!

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