The secret story behind Hughie's dad's casting in the
Amazon Prime Video original.
We presume, given that you're reading this, that you've tucked into your first helping of Amazon Prime Video's
The Boys, a dark, blackly comic take on superheroes from the people who brought you Preacher.
Jack Quaid plays Hughie, a regular guy who – following a brutal accident involving a high-speed superhero – joins a team ("The Boys") who hold irresponsible capewearers to account.
Nice work, you might think – Pegg is something of a geek figurehead, after all. Good that they've got his seal of approval. But there's more to his cameo than meets the eye, because Pegg was, in fact, the inspiration for Wee Hughie in the original comics.
See?
Comics artist Darick Robertson told ComicVine: "Garth [Ennis, the comic's writer] emphasised that it was important to capture an innocence but tough determination in Hughie. Two things that seemed to contradict each other and somehow in early sketches he kept looking too old. When I saw
Simon Pegg in Spaced I thought he captured that balance perfectly."
Many hoped that Pegg would play his likeness in the show when it was announced, but he demurred. "I was never up for it," Pegg told ComicBook.com in 2018. "[He's] in his early twenties so I was never going to play Hughie. I was never eligible to play Hughie. I'm really happy that Jack Quaid got the role because I think Jack's a brilliant actor."
He then mischievously added, "I can't wait to see what they do with the adaptation of it," despite presumably knowing full well that he was, in fact, going to be in it – just playing Hughie's dad.
And yes, Jack Quaid, if you're wondering, is the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan.