‘The Boys’: Paul Reiser on Reluctantly Becoming The Legend for Season 2

Meaghan Darwish June 23, 2022

Paul Reiser in The Boys - Season 3 — Prime Video

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 3, Episode 5 of The Boys, “The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies.”]

The Boys has introduced a TV legend into its Season 3 mix as Paul Reiser takes on the comic-book role of “The Legend.”

Making his first appearance in Season 3’s fifth episode, “The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies,” the veteran actor made quite an impression on Huey (Jack Quaid) and helped offer some vital information about Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) to Butcher (Karl Urban) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso).

The fast-talking former VP of Hero Management at Vought International has all the dirt that the Boys need to know in order to determine Soldier Boy’s next moves as well as their own. It’s a role that immediately won viewers over, but Reiser needed a little convincing first.

(Credit: Prime Video)

“My son, I give him credit and blame for everything I’ve done in the last few years practically,” Reiser jokes. “My son is 21 and he is a real aficionado, he’s like my cultural canary in the coal mine.” When the role was initially pitched to Reiser, the actor says he turned to his son for answers.

“I asked, ‘Have you heard of this show called The Boys?’ He went, ‘It’s great, you’ll hate it.’ And he was absolutely right. I went, ‘Oh, this is really good. What the… what? What am I looking at?’ It’s not that I hated it, it just was so not my kind of show,” Reiser clarifies. “I couldn’t help but admire the audacity and the extremism and how well it was written and produced.”

Still, that admiration wasn’t quite enough to make the actor sign up. “The character was very limited, but some of the stuff that he had to say was just very uncomfortable for me and I actually passed,” Reiser reveals. Thankfully, it was the actor’s agent who helped steer him towards accepting the standout role. “My very smart agent said, ‘Why don’t you just talk to Eric Kripke? He’s a great guy. I know him. And tell him your concerns.'”

Paul Reiser Joins 'The Boys' as Fan-Favorite Comic Character The Legend

Kripke was completely accommodating to Reiser’s reservations, as the actor remembers, “He said, ‘Oh, I can easily take that line out and change that.’ When I looked at it that way, I went, ‘Oh, well this could be really fun.'”

Once he decided to take on the role, Reiser was excited by “the idea of playing an old school guy, I always think of myself as old school. So it didn’t feel like that much of a stretch once they took away the graphic and repulsive parts.” Instead, those “graphic and repulsive parts” are being reserved for Reiser’s costars offering fans the joy of his presence on screen and allowing the elements that make The Boys the show fans know and love.

Stay tuned to see what’s next for the crew as The Boys Season 3 continues on Prime Video.

The Boys, Season 3, New Episodes, Fridays, Prime Video