The Boys’ Chace Crawford Felt Sick While Filming Season 1’s Gill Scene

The Boys’ Chace Crawford felt sick while filming season one’s gills scene. The Amazon Prime original hit show isn’t a series to shy away from shocking scenes. Crawford plays the Deep, a disgraced member of the Seven, an elite group of superheroes, or “supes,” who all aren’t as good as they seem.

The Deep is truly the first indication in The Boys that something isn’t quite right with the supes the world admires. He sexually assaults the newest member of the Seven, Starlight, the moment they’re alone together. After Starlight later reveals on national television that she was assaulted does the Deep gets exiled to Sandusky, Ohio. A random girl he hooks up with there ends up sexually assaulting him via the gills the Deep typically conceals under his superhero uniform. The now infamous gills scene was certainly uncomfortable for viewers to watch, even though the Deep was a colossal jerk.

Crawford revealed in a Variety Actors on Actors video chat with his former Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley that the gills scene literally made him sick. Badgley asks Crawford how much of the Deep’s gills in the scene were CGI or prosthetics. Check out Crawford’s response in full below.

“They did the actual prosthetics on my skin for the first part of the scene. They had a great special effects guy replicate my entire torso down to the little chest hair. I’m laying there, and I have my own fake torso on me with the gills that have a little bit more room, and he’s behind me pumping them with these air pumps so they move, and the director is right over me. I’m like, “Guys, I’m nauseous. Can I just get out of here?”

Crawford’s revelation that his gills weren’t CGI and how nauseous they made him feel in real life certainly adds a new layer of uncomfortable tension to the season one gills scene. The Boys is all about subverting audience expectations, and the Deep is one of the best examples of that practice. After all, he is shown to be a sex predator in the first season, but also clearly appreciates aquatic animals, attempting to free a dolpin in another shocking season one scene. While he does apologize to Starlight, it’s hard to discern whether he genuinely means it or if he’s just desperate to be welcomed back into the Seven. Nevertheless, it’s difficult not to feel a twinge of sympathy for the Deep after the woman he hooks up with touches his gills without consent. Crawford does a great job of balancing the Deep’s outward cockiness with his inward pain and low self-esteem.

Crawford reprises his role as the Deep in season two of The Boys. While Crawford gets in touch with his gills and is involved with yet another shocking scene involving a whale, it still remains yet to be seen if he has any chance of getting back into the Seven. Fans can see what trouble the Deep gets into next when episode four of season two premieres this Friday.

Source: Variety