WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Boys Season 2, available now on Amazon Prime Video.
When The Boys debuted on Amazon Prime, Queen Maeve was one of the most prestigious members of the superhero team, the Seven, second only to Homelander. Yet in many ways, her life was a lie. In Season 2, things seemed to get even worse when Homelander outed her and Vought attempted to exploit her sexuality for its own gain. Yet as the season wore on, Maeve increasingly fought back and tried to reclaim the life she wanted beyond anyone's influence. Actor Dominique McElligott brings a fiery determination and weary nobility to the character as she walks the line between genuine superhero and corporate product, and in The Boys' second season, McElligott had the opportunity to show even more of the complex, conflicted Queen Maeve.
Speaking with CBR, McElligott discussed Maeve's challenging coming-out journey in Season 2, what it was like to shoot that unexpected scene with Black Noir and her hopes for her character in The Boys' upcoming third season.
CBR: What was it like to film that big fight with all your female co-stars in the Season 2 finale?
Dominique McElligott: It was cool. It was a lot of fun. I mean, I personally was very pleased that they were exploring female empowerment in the season, and then to cap it off with that girl fight at the end was awesome. I think everyone enjoyed it.
We were all on set that day, I'm pretty sure. Except Homelander, right? Homelander wasn't there. And so we were all there, and it was cool. It was cool. It was kind of at the very end of the shoot. So it was being planned and planned and planned, but then all of a sudden, we were just doing it. It was my second to last day, so I think we were excited to shoot it, for sure.
Queen Maeve had a really difficult Season 2 arc. What were the unique challenges of playing her coming-out storyline?
Well, so that was really the arc of her journey in the second season, and when she's outed by Homelander, it's a turning point. And it's a point in the story where, because her whole identity at Vought has been this cultivated, marketed image persona of a superhero, a celebrity, when she gets to that place and it's on TV and it's out there, she has to come to terms with the fact that going forwards, it's motivation for her to say, "Okay, I have to now" -- how do I put this? -- "I have to now, be my own person, and I have to stop [letting others control me]."
It's a really empowering moment. It's about her taking her power back, and that's what makes it so poignant. Obviously, it's a malicious thing that Homelander has done, and it motivates her to take action against him, because he's obviously been her bully throughout the last couple of seasons. He's not a nice guy.
Speaking of that, Maeve also confronts a pivotal Season 1 moment where she follows Homelander against her better judgment and a plane full of people die. What notes were you able to bring out in the character as she confronted her moral ambiguity in the second season?
See, I don't really think it's a question of moral ambiguity because she very much knows what she wants to do. She wants to try her best to save a plane full of people, and she's not able to. There is no two ways about it. Queen Maeve, I know in the comic books she can fly, but in the show, she can't fly, and she needs Homelander, and that was the crux of it. She can't save these people without his help. So from Maeve’s standpoint, she did everything she could but the plane full of people still died, and she's obviously haunted by that. When it gets to Season 2, and she's trying to find a way to take action against Homelander and to have something over him and Deep helps her find this tape of what happened on the plane, now she's got ammunition to use against him.
So that moral compass is intact, I believe, because Maeve always ends up trying to do the right thing. That's what I feel is true of her. I mean, when it comes to Starlight and Black Noir, that's another [example], and then when it comes to the end of the season finale of Season 2, you see her again. She turns up and she does good. So, I think at her core, her moral compass remains intact, but she's also reached a point where she needs to take her own power back and fight for her own life. Because I think that that's her journey in the second season is, "I really need to fight for myself now. I've been busy saving people and trying to be all things to all people, and now I need to save myself."
Maeve, as you said, steps up and comes to Starlight’s rescue against Black Noir. What was your reaction when you read the nut allergy scene?
[Laughs] I love that scene. I laughed so hard when I read that scene, and also working with Nathan [Mitchel], who plays Black Noir, he's a sweetheart, so I was excited to do a scene with him. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I kind of love again, you're kind of expecting this kick-ass superhero fight sequence, and it turns into this funny little [nut] allergy joke. Which is funny because Nathan is actually allergic to [nuts]. So, [the candy bars] were carefully crafted. They didn't have any peanuts in them, obviously. But I just spent the afternoon stuffing chocolate into his face. [Laughs] It was a lot of fun.
A little bit different.
Yeah, definitely different. But that's the thing, that's the brilliance of the show. You never know where it's going to go. There's so many twists and turns and everything gets turned on its head in a way.
What can you tease that's coming up for Queen Maeve in Season 3?
I wish I knew. All I know is I feel like the end of Season 2, you see there's kind of no going back for Maeve because the relationship between her and Homelander is officially [broken]. It's never going to be this cat-and-mouse kind of game between them, that really kind of low-lying, palpable tension between those two.
She's someone who's dealing with bullying in the workplace. So Homelander’s a difficult guy to say the least. And so going forward in Season 3, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm hopeful but you don't know. You don't know what's going to happen in Season 3. I have no idea. I'm excited to get back though and see, and read the scripts.
Do you have like a dream story arc for Maeve next season?
I don't know. I'm hoping Maeve will find some peace, I guess. But that's what you want. I'm going to be always Team Maeve, so I'm always hopeful for her. Yeah, we'll see what happens. […] Maybe she'll see Elena again. Who knows. Anything can happen.
What has it meant for you to, in this huge universe, be able to represent the LGBTQ community?
It's cool. It's really cool. I have a lot of friends who are a part of that community and they have been touched by the storyline. You know, for me, it's more about identity. It's about sexuality, obviously, but it's about identity. And with Queen Maeve, it's one of the things that is being suppressed. She's the strongest woman in the world, and she's playing second fiddle to Homelander. She's a part of this corporation who are cultivating and watching her every move and controlling her essentially.
And her sexuality and who she really is as a person is being hidden from the world. So when that happens to somebody, when they're suppressing who they really are, the ramifications can be huge. And I think Queen Maeve is an example of somebody who, when you see them at the beginning of Season 1, she's scraping the barrel, she's just at the bottom and she's kind of running on empty. She's got an empty tank and she doesn't know what to do, she's feeling trapped.
And so for me the trajectory of Maeve’s story bringing it into the second season is her trying to get back her power and becoming empowered and living an authentic life. And that happens ironically, when Homelander outs her, that's what happens, that's the turning point. Obviously, it's a malicious thing for him to do, but that is the turning point where a certain weight is lifted off her shoulders and now she can take action.
Amazon Studios' The Boys stars Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie, Laz Alonso as Mother's Milk, Tomer Kapon as Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko, Erin Moriarty as Annie January, Chace Crawford as the Deep, Antony Starr as Homelander and Aya Cash as Stormfront. Seasons 1 and 2 are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.