The Boys boss says this star will play 'a whole new character' in season 4 after that intense finale
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Boys season 3 finale.
Fans of Amazon's The Boys might've noticed a strange twist in an early episode of season 3. The third chapter, "Barbary Coast," went back to the early days of Payback, the supe team once led by Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) during the era of World War II. Black Noir, a member of the Seven in the present day, was once a part of this team. While the silent character has notably kept his mask on at all times, we saw a rare moment in the flashbacks of Noir without the mask — and he was talking freely.
However, Nathan Mitchell, who has been the man underneath the Black Noir suit since day 1, was not the actor shown playing the maskless Noir. Instead, it was Fritzy-Klevans Destine, known for roles on Batwoman and Superman & Lois. That change, showrunner Eric Kripke tells EW, was made because Mitchell will now take on a new role in The Boys season 4 after what happens in the season 3 finale.
Kripke says he sat down with Mitchell before the start of the season to relay the news: "I think I literally said something like, 'OK, so I'm gonna say something and your stomach's gonna drop, but then I'm gonna follow it up with something and you're gonna see that it's okay.'"
Kripke and the writers decided that Black Noir would die in season 3. The finale episode saw the supe returning to Vought headquarters to face Homelander (Antony Starr) and prepare for the fight of his life against Soldier Boy. Tragically for him, Homelander kills Noir after learning his teammate kept a pretty big secret about Soldier Boy from him all these years.
The good news is that, Kripke says, "a character who is completely silent and in a black mask can be recast."
Come season 4, which will start filming this August, Mitchell will play "a different character who wears the Black Noir suit," Kripke reveals. "It's definitely not the last we've seen of Black Noir as a hero. It's just that the guy who was inside [the Noir suit] in season 3, he's gone. But we have Nathan playing a really interesting and hilarious character who wears the suit next season."
Kripke emphasizes, "We'll explore it as the season goes on, but Nathan plays a whole new character."
Amazon Studios Nathan Mitchell appears in the Black Noir costume in 'The Boys' season 3.
It's a bittersweet moment for the supe we've come to know as Black Noir, especially after season 3 fleshed out the character's backstory. He became the Noir of today after he was tasked by Stan Edgar to do away with Soldier Boy on Payback's Nicaragua mission, which results in Soldier Boy searing Noir's face, after which he goes silent. This is all dramatized in an animated sequence with Noir's imaginary friends.
"Young Noir grew up going to this pizza chain called Buster Beavers. It's like a Chucky Cheese," Kripke explains. "He sees the animated characters. They come to life and they have a lot of interaction with him." Each of the animated characters is also voiced by an actor from the Payback flashbacks in episode 3. Destine voices the Black Noir cartoon ram.
"Like everything on the show, it's sort of this organic road to hell, I guess," Kripke says. "We wanted to see Noir sort of Dark Knight of the Soul. It's hard to do that because he doesn't communicate. We knew we had to go inside his head and someone pitched, like, he goes to a cabin. And I said, 'He should go to a cabin, but all these Snow White animated creatures should be flying around all over him' and that we strongly implied they've always been there. And then someone said, 'Well, it might be a little corny. What about like a Chucky Cheese?' So it just evolves."
Kripke considers himself to be a big animation geek. That's why he developed The Boys Presents: Diabolical, the anthology series of animated shorts that tell separate stories set in The Boys universe. He admits it was perhaps this that kept animation on his mind for Noir's friends in season 3.
The standard, Kripke says, was it had to be "right at the level of real Disney hand-drawn animation."
"We worked with this amazing company called 6 Point Harness, which did create all the animation for us. But what I love about it most of all is it's definitely implied that for the entire run of the series, these characters just hang out with Noir," he continues. "If you were to cut into Noir's point of view, he'd have these animated characters that he's interacting with. And that just brings me no end of pleasure."
Find out more behind-the-scenes secrets to the making of The Boys season 3 in EW's On Set video series.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
