It’s finally upon us, the final episode of The Boys. With season five, the series comes to a close, and many have been waiting patiently to see how things end – especially what the end of the show means for some of our favourite characters, like A-Train, portrayed by Jessie T. Usher.
If you’ve been following the series, you’ll know that The Boys has been quite the journey for Usher and his speedy character. Ahead of the series finale, I had the opportunity to chat with him about how his mental preparation changed knowing it was the final season, his character’s arc, and some of the horrible ideas A-Train has had throughout the series.
Check out the full interview with Jessie T. Usher below:
Throughout all the seasons of The Boys, I felt like A-Train had one of the most complex character arcs from the entire series. So, I asked Usher what it was like to mentally prepare for the character in the final season, and whether that process differed at all from your past seasons.
“Yeah, it did. I knew that he was gonna die, so that was very different. I knew that, you know, and it was interesting, because, like, there’s a year of time that jumps between season four and season five, and about a year of time between where I left the character and where I picked him up with like new material again. But I had known early, you know, when they were workshopping the idea in the writer’s room, I had known that that A-Train was going to meet his demise and how it was going to happen and who was going to happen with, so I was sort of able to spend a lot of time with that,” Usher shared.
Portraying a character for this amount of time is likely to give lots of time to learn. Regarding the biggest thing Usher learned about his process as an actor or about himself from portraying A-Train over the last few years, Usher told me he learned to put more emphasis on what’s really important.
Usher said, “Yeah, you know, I mean, you learn to put more emphasis on what’s really important when you see characters go through the things that A-Train has gone through, you know? I got a chance to play him when he was his cockiest, when he was at On Top of the World, playing Prince’s guitar, you know what I mean? Just really ridiculous stuff. So I got a chance to get to know him when you know his life is on the line, there’s just a lot of things that, fortunately, you know, and I hope and pray that I never have to go through, or you’ll even be close to that. I get it, I get a chance to like really work my way through by playing this character, and you learn a lot about yourself, and a lot of, a lot of reactions and thoughts that you would have in those moments that you never expected yourself to feel, or to have, you know?
I’ve been with A-Train for eight years now, you know? I’ve been studying him, I’ve been hearing his voice, and feeling his feelings for a very long time. So these last few moments were heavy, and they were long. You know, they felt like I’ve had a lot of these things to get off my chest for a long time, even though I don’t personally feel that way, but because I’ve held stuff in for so long, it was just really nice to share these moments with these final moments with this character.”
My final question for Usher was based on the shirt I was wearing during the interview. The writing on the shirt said, “That’s a horrible idea…what time?” Which, I think, is something that fits with The Boys quite well.
This got a laugh from Usher, who told me, “Yeah. I mean, A-Train’s final decision, you know what I mean, to go help Starlight, and everybody at the camp – man, that was a horrible idea. You knew it was bad. We all knew it was a bad idea. It’s like, that’s not gonna work out. Come on, guys. But yeah, that was one of those – you know, that final moment with A-Train was absolutely one of those moments of, like, ‘This is a bad idea.’ But, of course, he already knew what time it was, you know?”