Hughie goes through a lot in The Boys. From his very first scene, where he ended up covered in the blood and guts of his own girlfriend, the down-on-his-luck loser usually ends up caked in some kind of bodily fluid. But in The Boys season 3, Hughie finally gets a little power back.
Along with Billy Butcher, the latest season of the TV series shows him taking a temporary, riskier version of Compound V to get even with the Supes once and for all. While this leads to him developing powers like super-speed, it does come with some drawbacks — like, ending up naked whenever he wants to use his powers.
But in an interview with Discussing Film, Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie, admitted that he didn’t mind being butt-naked on camera. In fact, The Boys cast member said it was a fair “trade-off” if it meant he could act like his favorite X-Men character…
“I love playing the moral center, but I think that you don’t really quite earn the right, as a character, to be the moral center of a show until you’ve been through the fire – until you’ve made some mistakes, wrestled with that, and come through to the other side and realize that you made a mistake and you’ve changed,” Quaid explained.
“Hughie was a very good character, and still is a very good character. But if we don’t see that goodness tested, then what’s it all for?”
He continued, “I also loved that the reason why he’s being tempted into this dark side is all because of Temp V, and I loved being able to actually play with a superpower. Granted, I had to get naked for a lot of it, but it’s a solid trade-off because Nightcrawler is one of my favorite X-Men, and I got naked for Nightcrawler powers!”
Somehow, we can’t see Supes becoming MCU characters anytime soon, but for more on The Boys, check out our guide to The Boys season 4 release date. Or, read more about Hughie’s development in season 3 of the drama series in our interview with showrunner Eric Kripke.