Jack Quaid has done his best to carve out a unique path for himself in Hollywood. Determined not to follow too closely in the footsteps of his very famous parents (Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan), the 32-year-old actor has fully embraced genre storytelling, ever since his breakout role in the first Hunger Games film for his brilliant performance as the endlessly endearing Hughie Campbell in Amazon Prime Video’s hugely popular comic book adaptation. The boysis currently airing its fourth season.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Quaid discusses his character’s evolution, shares his take on the show’s satirical politics, and shows us just how “crazy” the fifth and final season could be. He also shares anecdotes about working with Christopher Nolan on Oppenheimer and openly admits that he’s definitely a “baby nepo” — no matter what his mother, the “undisputed queen of romantic comedies,” has to say about it.
“I’m a comedy nerd, for sure,” Quaid assures me early in our conversation. But he also describes himself as a “huge nerd” of the period, a fact that helped shape the kinds of projects that drew him in as an actor and made him desperate to land a role. The boys“I would honestly be an extra on the show just to say I was on it,” he says.
Quaid plans to begin filming the show’s fifth and final season this fall. “We’ll all be going back to Toronto to film the final season, which is a really weird thing to say,” he notes. “Any show is lucky to last five seasons, and the fact that we get to finish it on our own terms is an incredible gift.”
“I’m just excited to see what a Boys “The final season looks like that too,” he adds, “because I mean, it has to be completely crazy.”
Below is an edited excerpt of our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing in following The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Googleor wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes as they’re released every Wednesday.
Hughie is the first character you’ve had the opportunity to play in these many years. How do you think he’s changed since the beginning of the series? Because he’s obviously been through a lot.
That’s an understatement, of course. I love playing this character and I love spending so much time with him. And I think Hughie is a really interesting character because he gives meaning to the show. The show is crazy, full of blood and superheroes doing really naughty things. And it took me a while to figure out my role, in a more meta sense, on the show. I’m the guy who has to react to the craziness in a realistic way — or as realistic as you can on a show like this — in order to ground all of that craziness.
But I think he’s grown a lot. In this season, we’re dealing with his abandonment issues. His mother left him when he was a kid, and now she’s back because his father is sick. I got to work with Simon Pegg again. And he plays my father in the show because in the original Hughie comics, my character is based on Simon Pegg, which he didn’t even allow.
When did he realize this?
I think he’s just a nerd and he saw the comics and he saw his face, and instead of filing a lawsuit like a normal person, he was like, “Ahh, that’s crazy!” So I want to thank him, because I think the show exists because Simon Pegg didn’t file a lawsuit. But I got to work with him and Rosemarie Dewitt, who plays my mom, and they’re both incredible, so wonderful and so generous. I learned so much from both of them. And I’m going to cherish those days for the rest of my life.
What do you think of the politics of the show? It’s essentially a satire of Trump’s America, but it has the merit of satirizing both sides, and I think both sides can get behind it. I know there are people on the right who think the show is just making fun of liberals, and vice versa. There’s obviously Homelander, a character who looks like Trump, and now we have Victoria Neuman, who is clearly modeled after AOC. And they’re both pretty evil!
You know, I always hesitate to say, “No, that’s the subtext,” because art is interpretive. I think its intent leans more toward the liberal side. At least, I’d like to think so, absolutely. I think the real message of the show that creator Eric Kripke is trying to get across is that anyone who claims to have all the answers and that they’re the only one who can help everyone and save everyone is lying to you.
“I am the only one who can solve this problem.”
Yes, there’s an orange guy with hay-colored hair – whatever, I’m talking about Donald Trump, that metaphor falls apart – but people like him come along and try to sell you that. And anybody who tries to say that he’s the strongest is lying to you and doesn’t have your best interests at heart. And I think the real lesson of the show that Eric is trying to get across is that it’s not really about one person saving the world. It’s really about ordinary people doing little, almost boring things every day to make the world a better place. That’s how we save each other.
Yeah, it’s crazy how many parallels there are between our reality and us. There’s a scene in the first episode of this new season where everyone is waiting for the verdict in Homelander’s murder trial that’s so similar to what everyone just experienced watching Trump’s verdict.
It’s really, really weird. And I don’t like it, actually. I almost feel like it’s a The Simpsons It’s a predictive thing. And I don’t like it because it’s usually something horrible. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh shit, a new season is coming out, what’s going to happen in the real world?”
That’s why the final season will be totally peaceful and everything will be settled, right?
It’s better that it is. Please, please, let it happen.
It’s interesting that you started in this genre with a small role in The hunger Games and that’s really a big part of what you’ve done. Is that the kind of thing that, because you start out that way, people think of you that way? Or is that really just what you gravitate towards?
I don’t know. Anyway, I’m very lucky because this is exactly where I want to be. I love the genre. I really do. I think there are so many cool, amazing stories that can be told in the genre space. I’m very lucky to be where I am.
I would say I also thought you were great in the movie One morewhich is, I would say, a pretty underrated romantic comedy starring you and Maya Erskine.
Oh thank you!
And that’s another path you could have taken, to do more romantic comedies. Was that a conscious decision not to do that, or was that just the choice that was made for you?
It was a conscious decision not to do it as much. It just has to be good, because, you know, my mom is the undisputed queen of romantic comedies. So I can’t just jump into that space, it has to be good. It has to be something that’s different enough from what she’s done. I’m not trying to take her place or anything.
Were you afraid that if you looked into this kind of thing, people would draw attention to it?
Yeah, I mean, no matter what I do, people are going to draw attention to me. Some have called me “baby nepo.” I tend to agree. I’m an extremely privileged person, I was able to get representation pretty early, and that’s more than half the battle. I knew the door was open for me in a lot of ways, which a lot of actors don’t. And I just tried to work as hard as I could to prove that I deserved to walk through that door. So if it’s in the romantic comedy space, it has to be different enough, and I have to hustle.
I saw a interview Not long ago, your mother defended you against this “baby nepo” label (“This NEP thing is such a disregard for his work ethic, his gifts and his sensitivity to the idea of his privilege,” Meg Ryan said last year.). And I was curious what you thought when you saw that.
Yeah, I saw that too. My first thought was that she was a loving mother. But I don’t think she’s trying to say that I’m not a nepo baby. I think she’s just trying to say that she thinks it detracts from my talent. I don’t think it detracts from my talent. I know I work hard and I’ve heard a lot more “no” than “yes.” But I also know that this industry is extremely difficult to break into and I’ve had an easier time of it than most people. Both things can be true. So no, I don’t think she was trying to say that I’m not a privileged person. She knows that. She must know that. I think she was a mother.
Listen to the episode now and Follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Googleor wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes when they’re released every Wednesday.