Sometimes, even when you’re a Hollywood showrunner in charge of a massively successful TV series, you can still be in awe of the people with whom you get to work. Such is the case for Eric Kripke, showrunner of The Boys, who, in an interview with Polygon, admitted he was quite humbled to hear that legendary actor Samuel L. Jackson is a fan of the show.
Kripke learned this fun fact after reaching out to Jackson’s agent about a potential cameo in The Boys‘ fifth and final season, which came together in episode seven, “The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother’s Milk.” Jackson voices a hammerhead shark named Xander, who’s pretty perturbed with the Deep for his part in destroying an oil pipeline that killed a whole bunch of fish. (“Perturbed” is perhaps putting it lightly; Xander tells the Deep, “If you step one foot, one fucking stupid-ass simian toe in the water, anywhere—an ocean, a stream, a fucking puddle—on God, son, you’re dead.” You can see how Jackson was the correct and only choice to deliver that line of dialogue, right?)
In the interview, Kripke explained how the cameo came together. “We wanted a really distinct voice and who has a more distinct voice in Hollywood than Sam Jackson? So we just went to his agent,” Kripke said. “He was our first choice, and we were like, Does he want to do this? It was really just taking a flyer. But then it came back, Oh yeah, he likes the show and totally, he’ll do it. Boy, that’s a bucket list moment, man, of Sam Jackson reading your dialogue.”
The Boys is no stranger to A-list cameos. Charlize Theron appeared as a replacement for Stormfront in the in-universe film Dawn of the Seven in the season three premiere, “Payback,” and Tilda Swinton voiced the octopus Ambrosius, another of the Deep’s undersea friends—though his relationship with Ambrosius was of a decidedly more intimate nature than the one he had with Xander—throughout season four.
Kripke also told Polygon that executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been helpful in securing many of the show’s high-profile guest stars. “A lot of the cameos we bring into the show are because Seth Rogen or Evan Goldberg have a relationship with them and can make a call. I lean on them a lot for that stuff.” Given that Theron also appeared on Rogen’s Apple TV+ series The Studio, it’s not hard to imagine that he could have made that connection happen for The Boys, too.
The Boys‘ final season has been rocky as a whole, but Jackson’s cameo was a much-needed win for the show. The Boys series finale airs May 20 on Prime Video.
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