The strategic yet unhinged Vought CEO Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) was never lined up to return as a series regular in the hit Prime Video show “The Boys,” but her “magical” performances on set and a suggestion from filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg cemented her as one of its pivotal characters.
“She is a crucial part of this show because she brings the heat every single time, and when you watch Episodes 6, she gives a performance that’s one of the funniest performances I’ve ever seen. She’s just a champion,” showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke told TheWrap.
And Kripke’s right, while the entire cast lights up the screen, Minifie has surprised viewers by becoming one of show’s fan-favorite breakouts. From pulling out hair in Season 3 because she’s constantly trying to keep The Seven under control to having the occasional masochistic rendezvous with Tek Knight, like she did in Season 4 Episode 6, there’s no telling what escapade she’ll end up being part of. Minifie explained that she feels like she won the lottery in landing the role of Ashley.
“I’m so grateful to this job,” Minifie shared. “There was no guarantee that it was going to last this long for me and so I feel like I won the actor’s jackpot. It’s also really fun to carry a character for so many years and see how she changes. I’d never had that experience before, and it’s really fun being like, ‘Oh, I know exactly how to jump into this thing now. It’s part of me.”
She continued, expounding on the previous uncertainty around her character’s lifespan in the series. “I think Ashley was only supposed to last in the first season,” Minifie said. “For her to continue, that was never meant to happen. For that to be part of my life is just a huge, huge gift.”
It’s true, Minifie participating as a solid, recurring star wasn’t promised, but Kripke said Trachtenberg — who directed the pilot episode of “The Boys” — knew Minifie’s potential all along.
“She was written into the pilot, but we thought she’d be lightly recurring. If you look in the pilot, she basically has the ‘assistant’ role, she’s the person who says a few things and brings you around,” Kripke said. “So when we were casting, we were looking at different actresses, and it was Dan Trachtenberg, who directed the pilot, and I really give him credit for that because he said, ‘We need to cast Colby because she’s somebody that you’re going to want to turn into a regular.’ He just called it right then and there. And I was like, ‘Well, what makes you so sure, guy.’ But, sure enough, we’re looking at her film and she’s just so magical.”
So magical, in fact, that she also recurred in the first season of “The Boys” college-set spin-off, “Gen V.”
“It was a breeze. They were just finishing up ‘Gen V’ right before we started on ‘The Boys,’ and so I just came a week early and shot it and had a total blast,” Minifie said of her time working on the spin-off. “It was really nice getting to see Ashley do her job really well and be a leader of all of these people in this corporation without having Homelander breathe down her neck. Of course, then her life is at risk and she gets to run around screaming, which was my favorite thing. But I also get to act with P.J. Byrne again, who plays Bork. He’s one of my favorite people to act with of all-time, and we just kept writing, we kept making out in the middle of scenes. I don’t know if any of that made it, but we had a total blast. He’s married, it’s fine. We find a way to play with our characters because they gave us the green light to do that and the two of them are total coo-coo bananas, kinky, wild cats, so it’s really fun to be on that show.”
In other news, Ashley just released a message about how to evade misinformation online, the whereabouts of VNN anchor Cameron Coleman and that those flying farm animals (from Episode 5) are merely just artificial intelligence. She also confirmed that despite some false claims, she will remain the CEO of Vought. Check out what she had to say in the video below.
New episodes of “The Boys” stream Thursdays on Prime Video.
