Interview: The Boys’ Valorie Dissects Firecracker’s Explosive Character

Sometimes when we watch television shows, we forget that the characters we see on-screen are actual people. This is what happens when people watch a show like The Boys. The sometimes disturbing superhero series allows viewers to be swept up in the show’s plot and irony.

The Boys’ newest season recently premiered a new character, Firecracker (Valorie Curry), and, to say it simply, she’s a villain – even if some view her as a hero.  Known to be an explosive political activist, she has taken the world by storm. Parading around as Vought’s new “it” girl, she’s a viral and prominent voice of the alt-right movement. But in reality, she’s a grifter with a grudge who’s doing all she can to take down Starlight (Erin Moriarty) who had wronged her in the past. Overall, the show does an amazing job showing the duality of having a world in which superheroes are present in everyday life. But this same duality could be seen with the actors who work on the show, especially Curry. 

At SJI 2024, Gloria Ekechukwu and Shaniece Clarke had the pleasure of speaking with Curry about her role as Firecracker in The Boys. During their interview, they discussed Curry’s acting career, what daily life on set is like on The Boys, and her pivotal role in the popular video game, Detroit Become Human.

Shaniece Clarke: What’s your guilty pleasure TV show – or movie – that you’re a little bit embarrassed to admit that you love?

Valorie Curry: OK… Outlander. I feel like whenever I say that, everybody’s response is like, “Oh, my mom loves that show….” which is kind of mean to moms to think of it as a guilty pleasure because of that. But no, I love that show. I’ve been in it from the beginning, and, at this point, I’m committed. I’m going to see it all the way through. 

Gloria Ekechukwu: As an actress, what is the atmosphere like on set?

Curry: On this show? Or do you mean in general?

Ekechukwu: My first introduction to your work was Detroit Become Human. Like, I was a big fan of that when it came out, and I just loved your character, Kara. So, what is the atmosphere like on an actual TV show/movie set, and also like a game set? I know you have to wear like weird costumes and stuff like that for motion capture and all that…

Curry: Well, that’s a really great question. And I think that it really illustrates the fact that the set is going to be different from one job to the next. And definitely, when you’re talking about a different medium, like a video game versus a big studio movie versus a TV show versus an indie film – they’re all going to be super different. On top of that, just depending on the show itself, like what the cast is like… Some people, you get a vibe with a group. Sometimes it’s not so much of a family feel. So it’s really a unique experience every time. Sometimes I still feel like a kid on the first day of school, and I’m like, “I hope everybody’s nice at lunch.”

Doing Detroit Become Human was the most unique set experience in terms of performance because it was so much less collaborative. Obviously. there’s an entire motion capture team that’s there. They’re on the computers like off to the side and the director is over there as well. But, for the most part, other than a few key scenes on that project, I was acting alone. Or maybe with Audrey (Boustani), who played the little girl. So, it’s all imaginary circumstances. I’m in the suit. There’s like 500 cameras lining the walls everywhere they capture every single angle. But the set is all in my imagination. Sometimes it’s people from the motion capture team that are just talking to me… But it’s so much more imagination work. It’s all coming from inside me, as opposed to on most film or TV sets. 

Part of what is really magical and what’s so immersive about [tv sets] is the fact that it is such a collaboration with the other performers and with everyone in every department. I’m showing up and I’m just doing my piece. I get to come in and see… How did the art department decide to decorate Firecracker’s apartment? Nobody asked me. Nobody told me. I get to be surprised by that team’s interpretation of the character, and then the director has their own perspective. The writers are there. There are so many people on set, and I think the important thing to keep in mind always is that people see the actors but we are one part of a very big quilt. Everyone there is an artist. Everyone there has a perspective, and they’ve all been brought there because they’re so good at their craft. I grew up doing theater, so I think that that was also really helpful to me in developing a sense and appreciation of how much of a team effort it really is.

Clarke: Bouncing off of that, how do you approach developing the character itself? Like the set is already made. The character is already written. How do you add your touch to the character and make it yours? 

Curry: I think everybody works a little differently, and it does sometimes vary from one character to the next. Some characters I can connect with right off the bat because I feel like there’s a very shared experience. Or I really understand what this person is coming from. Sometimes it’s more instinctive. For somebody like Firecracker, who’s probably the most different from me than any character I’ve ever played, that is much more of an instinct for, like, Who is this? Who’s this mask I’m gonna put on? Like, who’s this clown? As opposed to it coming from something internal that feels connected with her. From there, from that kind of intuitive spark of a feeling with a character, then I’ll start to feel into things. I’m really big on writing backstories. I need to know who their parents were? Where did they grow up? What was school like? It’s not just about immediate circumstances. I build a whole history for this person that will inform things I build outward from there…

I always tend to have a pretty instinctive take on a voice, which is also why I find accents really fun. I loved studying accents in school and their specificity, which really helps me to kind of tap into them. One of the things I really particularly love about TV in general is because I get to be with a character for longer, I develop a relationship with who this person is. I know who this person is, so I know when I get a script on Tuesday that I start shooting on Wednesday, I know her so well. I know how she’ll respond in situations, as opposed to something like a film or even a game, where it’s this single discrete story where I have that whole arc crafted when I get there, and then I’m just playing out the pieces of it. With TV, it’s a little bit more like when you know your best friend. You know exactly what they’re going to say in a conversation when you bring things up. So, it’s fun. There’s a spontaneity to it. I get to discover that character as the writers give me more and more and more story.

Ekechukwu: I wanted to ask more about your character, Firecracker. What was your first impression when you saw the script and what her character was about?… She’s similar to like Trump? But not Trump…
Curry: Yeah, like if Trump was in this world.

Ekechukwu: Yes! Like super conservative. And you’re a queer woman and obviously like the complete opposite of who Firecracker is… What was your first impression? Was like a challenge to get into her character?

Curry: Well, my first impression was based off of just a couple of scenes that I auditioned with, and one of which was a podcast episode – just a page and a half of her horrible speeches that she gives all over the show. And then one was the scene with Starlight, where we have a confrontation in the apartment, and we talk about how she bullied Firecracker. So, I was able to see this performance of her, and then the real human inside, which I think is an element to all of the supe characters in The Boys. They all have this public persona, and then they have a very fragile person inside of it. And I thought it was hilarious. It’s so clear to me that the perspective of the show, which is so important, like the tone, knows she’s a villain. It knows it’s making fun of her. It’s not equivocating. It’s not ambivalent. It’s not trying to justify her, even though she is a human inside of this. It’s a satirical tone. So I knew it would be really fun to play that because it’s fun to show how absurd these people are. Like everybody’s been saying the last couple of weeks, how just weird they are, and to really showcase that, and then, on the flip side, having that backstory – that childhood trauma of bullying – gave me something real that I could then connect with in an intrinsic way, to make her a human, to fill her out, to find what that fragility, what that vulnerability, was. The reason why she has put on this Alex Jones like awful persona, and, honestly, she’s a grifter.

Clarke & Ekechukwu: Yes, yeah… 

Curry: That was the other thing that I took away from it. See, it doesn’t matter how much of this she believes because she’s willing to say it. Because the point is, she’ll say whatever she has to say to get an audience to grasp for any little bit of power she can, which isn’t really very much in the beginning. When we meet her, she’s very fringe. But she’s a survivor, and she’s a grifter, and that’s what I took away from it, from the get go.

Clarke: Can you discuss any interesting behind the scene experiences or anecdotes from working on The Boys? 

Curry: Like I said, every show is a different experience. Every set’s a different experience. As you can probably tell from watching the show, the production value is huge. There’s so many special effects. There’s so many fight sequences and everything that truly shooting an episode is like shooting an entire movie. We take as long as like some independent films will take shooting. It’s like a month per episode, as opposed to one week, which is more typical. So, it’s this very big machine. 

But at the same time, one of the things that I love about it is that everyone takes their job as an actor very, very, very seriously. Everyone is showing up totally committed. A lot of times, honestly, it’s like, you’ll show up to shoot a scene, and people are [still] finding their way into it. Maybe they give 50% when they’re in a big, wide shot, and they give more when they’re really being covered up close, which I get. You gotta preserve energy. But with this show, everyone is just going. From the first take, they’re improvising. They know how to play with each other. So it feels like this kind of tennis match and it’s just fully committed to the characters. Nobody is giving any less than 100% from the first take, which I love. I actually find it harder to kind of try to pull back and then bring it later…

So what’s the vibe like on set? Everybody’s got their own little cultures. When I was shooting with The Boys… they’d play backgammon all day. I’m not a board game person. It’s not my thing. But they come to set and they pull out their chairs, and they pull their tables whenever they’re not actually actively shooting… I think the stunt team is one of the most incredible stunt teams I’ve ever worked with. And I love doing all the fight stuff. I love getting to do stunts. I’m a fan girl for the stunt team and these guys are so amazing. They’re so cool. They have their whole own studio setup on the stage where they’re just working every day. We’re shooting five days a week. They’re working on every fight sequence, every stunt. They’re choreographing it. They’re filming it. They’re changing it. They’re working out. In another life, I wish I could be a stunt person.

Ekechukwu: Where do you want your character, Firecracker, to end up? I know you’ve said that you want Firecracker to die and you said an interesting death… Not the medication she’s taking, but a dramatic death. What’s your vision for that? Like what’s your ideal ending for The Boys?

Curry: Wow… I always say, and I’m really not joking, I hope Ashley (Colby Minifie) kills Homelander (Antony Starr). 

Clarke & Ekechukwu: [Laughs.]

Curry: I feel like it’s been set up from the beginning. This is just me, though… So, from the beginning [of the series], there’s been this kind of animosity rivalry between Homelander and Butcher (Karl Urban), right? And that kind of centers on the initial story point of Butcher’s wife (Shantel VanSanten) having been assaulted by Homelander and ultimately dying. It’s this idea of revenge… 

Personally, I don’t want it to end up being this story about these fragile, toxically masculine dudes fighting about a woman. I love the idea of Ashley, who… You’ve seen the whole season, right? 

Clarke & Ekechukwu: Yeah!

Curry: She shot up with V… And so she’s been this human stepped on all season long. She’s been this tool for Vought. She’s kind of been a prisoner. She can’t really get out at this point. And she also sucks in her own right as well. (But everybody sort of sucks on The Boys, right?) I think there’s something really poignant about Homelander being killed or losing his powers by somebody who he viewed as so insignificant the entire time, by somebody he thought wasn’t even worth his attention or time. I also love Colby Minifie. She’s so talented. I think she would crush it.

Homelander has to be taken down, right?

Clarke & Ekechukwu: Yeah, yeah…

Curry: I feel like Firecracker should die. If it wasn’t the final season, maybe I wouldn’t say that. I do hope it’s something else, and I’m confident it will be… I literally don’t know anything about it. They would never tell me. But I feel like it’s almost too obvious to being the milk. She seems so rough at the end of the season. I feel like it has to be something else. How do you want the show to end?

Clarke: Ok, can I…

Curry: Oh, you have an idea! Tell me!

Clarke: Because I watched Gen V, I think it has something to do with Marie (Jaz Sinclair) because of Victoria (Claudia Doumit)… I don’t think she’s dead. I think I’m in denial. I think they’re going to team-up since they have the same type of powers. 

Curry: That’s the thing, right? You can’t really trust that anybody’s dead on these shows either. It would be cool if Maeve (Dominique McElligott) came back also…

Ekechukwu: Yes, oh my god… She could be like, “You thought I was dead?… Nah.”

Curry: Maybe it should be Maeve to take out Homelander…

Ekechukwu: She was so close in the season 3 finale! I just want Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) to run off, just please, keep them alive…

Curry: Everyone gets therapy.

Ekechukwu: Yes, please. Change your names! Go off somewhere. 

Curry: I really want Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), also…

Ekechukwu & Clarke: YES. Please. 

Curry: He’s the best on the show.

Ekechukwu: Seriously!

Curry: Like I want him on the beach…

Ekechukwu: With his family, with his daughter, oh my god…

Clarke: Just relaxin’…

Ekechukwu: For real. After Herogasm, I think he needed to go to a beach and relax, please. I’d be so traumatized… After The Boys, where do you see your career going? What projects do you want to take on? Would you want to take on projects that challenge you like Firecracker? Take on characters that have no similarity to you and try to play them the best way you can?

Curry: Yeah, I think I’m always looking for that. Firecracker is just … in terms of the way that she expresses herself … is also the most different from me. I’ve played a serial killer. I’ve played people that were very different from me already. But I do really love disappearing into roles, and it’s one of the things I’m proud of with this particular role. People didn’t recognize me, like people who know me don’t know that that’s me on the show. For me, that’s the highest compliment I can get as an actor. It was also so much fun to go so far and play somebody so big and reach in so many directions that asks a lot of me. Also, my dream role is, I want to be Lara Croft. 

Ekechukwu & Clarke: I see it… Yeah, I see it too.

Curry: I know I’m probably getting too old. 

Ekechukwu: No, with the new AI, you can just de-age yourself. [Laughs.] I’m kidding. I’m kidding… But you never know! You never know.

Curry: You never know, you’re right? A mature Lara Croft… yeah. She can do the stunts but then she needs an ice pack and ibuprofen.

Clarke: Don’t worry, I need that at my age too.

Curry: Ok, that makes me feel better.

Ekechukwu: I tried so hard not to fangirl, because bro, I love Detroit Become Human. Oh, I love that game so much. Playing Kara was so fun. That game was so influential for me…

Curry: I feel like people had a very personal experience with that game in a way that I haven’t seen with anything else I’ve worked on. I don’t think I’ve seen it with a lot of other projects or fan bases, and it’s really special to have worked on something like that. I feel like it’s something that the fans, people who played it, felt really moved by it. I feel like y’all own it. It doesn’t feel like mine. It feels like something I played a part in, but it’s yours. And I think that’s really beautiful. 

Ekechukwu: You were amazing in the new season of The Boys. Firecracker was one of my favorite characters…. I thought it was really interesting how you’re the complete opposite of your character, but you managed to play her so well. Honestly, I think you deserve your props for that. You did amazing. You’re one of my highlight characters. Thank you so much for your time.