Shue enjoys role as strong woman amid superheroes
Elisabeth Shue knew absolutely nothing about “The Boys,” the comic book on which her new Amazon Prime series of the same name is based. Reading the comic wouldn’t have been much help: She plays Madelyn Stillwell, a character who doesn’t exist in the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, which have been adapted by Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke and Seth Rogen.
“I knew the general sense of the comics,” Shue said, “and I spent a lot of time talking to Eric about the feeling of the story and what kind of territory they would cover. So I had a good, strong feeling of the tone, but I didn’t read them.”
Premiering on Friday, “The Boys” is an unapologetically dark, violent and profane show that reveals a group of supposedly honorable and selfless superheroes (Chace Crawford, Antony Starr, Dominique Mcelligott, Jessie T. Usher), colloquially known as “Supes,” to be vain, publicityseeking jerks who are tools of a corporation called Vought International. Enter a group of vigilantes, “The Boys” (Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Jack Quaid and Karl Urban), who aim to expose the crooked crimefighters.
Stillwell is Vought’s senior vice president for hero management. It’s her job to promote, protect and control the superheroes, a task she carries out ruthlessly and — in a quirky touch — often while pumping breast milk for her baby.
“I loved playing her, because her power comes from a place of insecurity and need, and I find that women who finally get to a position in power have gone through so much to get there that their need for power probably gets warped,” she said. “Their ability to sometimes want to seek revenge on those who betrayed them on the way to the top is really interesting to play as a woman.
“And just to navigate the sexuality of what it means to be a powerful woman, to either hide that sexuality or use that sexuality, that was an interesting territory to explore,” she continued. “And then, oddly, the part of her as a woman that was most intriguing, in the middle of power and sexuality, was to imagine her being a mom. I thought that really made everything just more complicated.”
Fans of “The Boys” will surely debate Stillwell’s endgame. Does she seek revenge? Is she after more control? Does she aim to wield more power even than the Supes?
“She wants attention,” Shue replied. “She wants a lot of attention. She’s greedy. She’s a narcissist and, at times, a sociopath. I think she wanted to have a baby because it would make everybody go, ‘Wow, you have a baby. Look at you. Oh, you’re such a good mom. Wow, look how beautiful your baby is.’ She almost thought that would make her feel more powerful.”
Shue, who is 55 and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children, launched her career more than 40 years ago, segueing from commercials to film and television. An Academy Award nominee as Best Actress for “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995), she has a filmography that runs from “The Karate Kid” (1984) to “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (2012-2015) and “Battle of the Sexes” (2017).