Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Boys” Season 4, Episode 8.
Claudia Doumit expected Victoria Neuman to die the second she was cast in “The Boys” Season 2.
But the character did not meet her end until the violent Season 4 finale. She was ready to turn herself over to The Boys in exchange for protection for herself and daughter Zoey, but Butcher (Karl Urban) had other plans. He revealed his tentacular power and tore Neuman in half in front of her daughter.
“From the moment I joined this show, I thought she was going to die,” Doumit told TheWrap. “Not because anyone told me but because I knew what show I was coming on to. I honestly thought it would be sooner.”
She added, “by the time it actually came around I had already mourned the death of my character.”
Doumit added that she views her character’s story through the seasons as a cautionary tale. She said that by the time Victoria decided to do the right thing it was already too late for her — and in a sense everything she wanted for Zoey.
“She represents the self-destructive nature of one’s pursuit of absolute power and that pursuit will always cost an individual their integrity and humanity,” Doumit said.
Below, Doumit breaks down the “relaxing” day shooting her big death scene, mourning her character, and Neuman and Hughie’s (Jack Quaid) “heartbreaking” friendship.
How much of Victoria’s story did you know about when you signed on in Season 2?
From the moment I joined this show, I thought she was going to die. Not because anyone told me but because I knew what show I was coming on to. I honestly thought it would be sooner. I just feel lucky that I spent as much time on the show that I did. I came on at the end of Season 2 and I thought OK, I’ll have a few episodes and they’ll kill me. Then came Season 3, and I thought OK I’ll have a few episodes and they’ll kill me, and they didn’t.
By the time it actually came around I had already mourned the death of my character. I remember Eric [Kripke] calling me halfway through the season. His assistant got in touch with me that day and said “Hey, I’ve got Eric here, do you think you’d be available in the next hour or so?” That was my first indication. Eric’s never free within the hour!
The classic HR meeting showing up on your calendar last minute.
100%. It almost felt like a break-up. You know, “it has nothing to do with you, it’s us.”
But really, I’ve loved this show so much and I’ve loved this character. I’m just happy I got to walk around in her insanely fierce pantsuits for as long as I did.
Victoria has had her hand in a few of the more gruesome deaths in the series. How did you feel about her death? What was that day’s shoot like?
I loved it! It was actually the most relaxing death I’ve ever had. The amount of work that I did for that was: I got rigged up, and they just lifted my body mid-air. They just lifted me high up and I just had to writhe around as if I had these insane tentacles wrapped around me — and that was it. I’d just writhe around for about 10 seconds and then someone would say ‘And rip!’ and then I’d go stiff.
Have you seen the final product?
Yeah I have. In terms of that death, it was really shocking and beautiful but most of all it was a great death. That’s an honor in and of itself. A great death is what you want, especially in a show like this. This all sounds crazy for me to say, but I was really happy about it.
What’s funny is that it also just felt like another day at work. I’m not new to being drenched in fake blood, pretending that there’s something gruesome happening around me, the only difference was that day it was my fake blood and the gruesome thing was happening to me.
Looking back to before the death, Homelander calls her a puppet after he outs her as a supe on Firecracker’s show. Had she ever thought of herself that way before then?
I think the interesting thing about Victoria Neuman, and especially this season, is she has intense tunnel vision. It’s the first time she’s going out on her own. She doesn’t have Stan Edgar with her to pull the strings or tell her what her job is. It’s kind of the first time she really has total agency and she’s discovering that that landscape is incredibly hard to traverse — especially with a character like Homelander. Neuman’s so strategic, she plans everything, and when she’s with someone who’s so eratic and volatile and aggressive it’s a terrifying space to be in.
You can see this season the deeper she goes down the rabbit hole, you see the cracks start to show. You see it really start to affect her and what she ultimately does to cope with that is detach entirely. You can see that through the season, she becomes more detached from what’s happening around her. At the end of it, the path that she’s pursued and gone down ultimately – and this is so dramatic to say – ultimately costs her her soul and her humanity.
Was she willing to just continually detach and go about things until Homelander also threatened Zoey? Was that her hard out?
I think that violently shakes her awake. It’s almost like she’s in a coma and that wakes her back up because that’s her number one concern. She’s someone who has operated in survival mode her entire life, but there’s just this blinding clarity in that moment that none of it matters – this pursuit of power she thinks she needs, this safety and security she thinks she needs for herself. All of those things don’t mean anything anymore in that moment.
That’s when she reaches out to Hughie.
Hughie really is her only confidant and friend, despite them being on opposite sides. Was that phone call to him, Victoria being honest for the first time in a while?
In that moment she’s reaching out to the only person in her life that’s her friend and that sees her for the good that she is underneath everything else. I think Hughie is the only person in Neuman’s life that’s she’s really been herself around. Maybe Hughie and Sameer. There’s so few people that she completely unmasks in front of and I think that’s a hard task in general because she wears so many masks. Even though she hasn’t been completely honest with Hughie, the amount that she’s given him is the amount that she can give someone.
It’s such a heartbreaking journey for that friendship because he truly does see her and all her good parts. That gets broken for him pretty early in the season and that affects her in a very intense way. It’s really sad.
Did any part of her entertain Homelander’s pitch to just take the election whether they won or not?
No, and I think you see where these two people don’t really work together. Their approaches are the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I really think she saddled herself to Homelander because that was the most powerful route that she saw to the presidency.
All of Victoria’s ending in the finale is tragic. Is Zoey ending up at Red River the worst case scenario for Neuman?
It’s horrific because Neuman’s goal with Zoey was to give her a childhood that was anything but Neuman’s. She didn’t really want Zoey to have powers, she wanted her to grow up with a loving parent, and she didn’t want her to end up in an orphanage that she did. All three of those things are now happening. Everything she didn’t want for her daughter are now happening.
I think of Neuman as a cautionary tale. She represents the self-destructive nature of one’s pursuit of absolute power and that pursuit will always cost an individual their integrity and humanity. She’s also incredibly human because this drive and hunger she has for power really comes from a deep need to feel safe and secure.
“The Boys” Season 4 is streaming now on Prime Video.
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