Jack Quaid teases his new Superman cartoon as 'the flip side of The Boys '
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When Jack Quaid was a young boy, he was obsessed with superheroes. But he had a particularly creative way of demonstrating that passion: He would throw on a Batman cape and combine it with a white T-shirt, on which he would draw a triangle emblem similar to Superman's logo but with a J instead of an S, for Super Jack.
In the years since then, Quaid, 31, has become an integral part of multiple onscreen superhero stories. For three seasons he's played Hughie on The Boys, a show that deconstructs the whole idea of superheroes and whether they'd really be a benefit to society. But now Quaid is going from playing a superhero hunter to voicing the greatest superhero of them all, because he plays the title role in the new animated series My Adventures With Superman. (Watch an exclusive clip from the show above.)
"I've been lucky to be a part of superhero things like The Boys, but what I love about this project is how earnest and sweet it is," Quaid tells EW over Zoom. "It's kind of the flip side to The Boys. It's so honest and so genuine, not snarky in the slightest."
Courtesy of Warner Bros Animation and DC Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and Superman (Jack Quaid) on 'My Adventures With Superman'
It's not that Superman stories can't be dark — the recent run of movies starring Henry Cavill pondered deep questions about faith and justice, explicitly comparing the Man of Steel to the Son of God. But My Adventures With Superman takes an opposite approach. Here, viewers meet Quaid's Clark Kent at the very beginning of his career as a superhero, earnestly finding his way in the world alongside fellow Daily Planet interns Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid).
To prepare for the role, Quaid studied comics like All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely — a beloved comic series from the late 2000s that depicts its hero as a positive force in the world, and which has also been cited by director James Gunn as a major inspiration for his upcoming film reboot Superman: Legacy.
Amazon Prime; Adult Swim Jack Quaid goes from supe fighter to Superman in the animated series 'My Adventures With Superman'
"What I like about this version of Superman is that he's Clark first," Quaid says. "When you meet him, he knows about his powers, but he keeps them a secret. He doesn't want anyone to know that he has these abilities. He wants to be a normal man having a normal day, and he doesn't know where he comes from. He doesn't know about Krypton. He's still figuring out who he is as a hero and as a man. I just found the whole thing really compelling."
My Adventures With Superman is so tonally different from The Boys that Quaid actually thinks Hughie would enjoy watching it if given the chance.
Courtesy of Warner Bros Animation and DC Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and Clark Kent (Jack Quaid) on 'My Adventures With Superman'
"I think he would like the tone of it," Quaid says. "It probably reminds him of Starlight, you know? Since Starlight is the one superhero on The Boys who is like a genuine altruistic person who doesn't let her ego mess up her moral compass. So I think Hughie and Starlight would watch this show together and think, 'Wouldn't it be great if our world was like this?'"
My Adventures With Superman will premiere with back-to-back episodes at midnight on Adult Swim on Thursday, July 6, with new episodes following every week and streaming the next day on Max.
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