Black Noir Unmasked: ‘The Boys’ Star Nathan Mitchell Talks New Noir’s Powers and ‘Gen V’ Connection
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Episode 7 of “The Boys” Season 4, currently streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.
It’s Christmas for “The Boys” — sort of.
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The latest episode begins with Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) filming a puppet-themed Christmas special for Vought, complete with a puppet version of A-Train and a hilarious pro-America, anti-woke agenda. However, Ryan pulls the plug on the promo over its controversial lyrics, which were personally approved by his dad Homelander (Antony Starr).
Things aren’t going well for the elder, unraveling supe. Homelander is furious that Vought hasn’t caught the company leaker yet, after Homelander incorrectly suspected and then murdered newscaster Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) — who is reported publicly to have died from a brain aneurysm after a flu vaccination. Firecracker (Valorie Curry) then points Homelander toward Webweaver (Dan Nousseau), who comes clean as an informant for Butcher (Karl Urban). Homelander rewards the Spider-Man ripoff for his honesty by violently tearing him in half as he shoots out disgusting webs from his, uhh, web-hole.
The rest of the Seven aren’t faring much better. The Deep (Chace Crawford) kills his beloved octopus girlfriend Ambrosius (voiced by Tilda Swinton), and fully pledges his allegiance to Homelander and Vought. He and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) are sent by Homelander to eliminate Butcher and Starlight (Erin Moriarty), and we get a mini Seven vs. The Boys battle. The evil supes nearly have the upper hand, especially when the new Noir reveals he can fly, but A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) betrays his teammates to help The Boys. After A-Train is proven to be the Vought leaker, Homelander fires Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) from the Seven — and in another hilarious moment, it’s revealed that in addition to the Deep, she was also sleeping with Noir, but without the need for a lobotomy.
After MM (Laz Alonso) steps down as the head of The Boys, Butcher is reinstated as the group’s leader as they continue trying the synthesize the supe-killing virus. After Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) is stabbed in the leg with the virus, her regeneration powers are put to the test when Frenchie (Tomer Capone) performs a bloody, makeshift amputation. There’s still hope, though, that Frenchie can make a supe bioweapon to kill Homelander. However, The Boys must now deal with a shape-shifter who’s posing as Starlight. A “fan” who took a selfie with her earlier in the episode turns out to be an undercover shape-shifter who has left the real Starlight chained up ahead of the team’s meeting with the president. With the season finale ahead, it seems like the presidential meeting may have an unexpected party crasher.
Mitchell, who has played Black Noir since the beginning of “The Boys,” spoke with Variety about the second iteration of the character, which he calls new Noir. The original Black Noir was a mute killing machine who had been a longtime member of the Seven. In flashbacks, we learned that Noir’s name was Earving, and he’d lost the ability to speak after Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) brutally attacked him during a mission. At the end of Season 3, that Black Noir was killed by Homelander after he learned that Noir had been hiding the fact that Soldier Boy was Homelander’s father.
Now in Season 4, Noir has mysteriously returned with a new person under the black bodysuit. Mitchell discusses the talkative new Noir, the “Gen V” connection to the character and filming that flying supe battle.
When did you find out that the new Black Noir would be able to fly?
It was sometime in Season 4, because they were trying to figure out what new Noir’s powers were going to be. When I found out it was flying, I was very excited. That’s on the top of everyone’s list of superpowers. Why would you not want to fly? Then you couple that with the tools that this character has at his disposal — imagine someone who can fly coming at you with a bunch of knives. It adds a different dimension.
Did any of your other flying castmates give you tips about shooting that big fight scene?
I gotta shout out our amazing stunt team, because without them we wouldn’t be able to make this scene happen. Pulleys are very uncomfortable. The way the harness sits on the body, it holds whoever’s in there. It just pulls on your thighs, and it looks really cool but it does happen at the expense of some comfortability. I was just a taking in the whole sequence of everything we had to do. What really excited me was just the comedic moments that new Noir plays when he’s in the air and being shot at and he realizes he can’t take it like, “Oh fuck! Shit!” That was one of my favorite parts.
Was the other Noir able to fly, and we just never saw him do it? Does this new Noir have other powers we haven’t seen yet?
No, he could not fly. New Noir is a new supe with a new power set. They’re different in their abilities. All I know is that he can fly, and he’s an aspiring actor.
We hear the new Noir talk this season, which is something the old Noir never did. How did you decide on the voice for new Noir?
When I approach Noir as a character — both Black Noir and new Noir — the thing that interests me the most is the notion of contrast. How can I give the character traits that contrast what we would expect from him? With OG Black Noir, we look at the suit and get this stoic, menacing figure: “He could kill me.” When I crafted old Noir, it was “How can I give him traits that contrast with this killer that we see?” That’s where you get the socially awkward person who is empathetic toward animals and kids, but kills people and is also kind of a kid himself.
With new Noir, I knew we’d be looking at him in the context of old Noir, so we’d be expecting what we saw out of old Noir. If old Noir could speak, he’d have this cool, maybe a little raspy, deep voice that is intimidating, even though he has a soft heart. If old Noir is this badass, then new Noir is just this guy who gets thrown into a suit. He’s kind of average and everyday, in that sense. He’s an actor, but he’s also just dude. What would it be like if a normal person got plucked out of their life and put into the Seven and asked to do some crazy shit? I tried to bring a normal, everyday quality of someone who’s totally not in their element and trying to figure things out as this world unfolds before them.
We know he’s an actor, but will we ever find out where this new Noir came from?
I think where they found him is pretty simple. We might elaborate on that, I don’t know. I think he was an actor who hasn’t really made much traction in his career outside of Cirque du Vought. He graduated from Godolkin, and he was really good at university. But that’s why not a lot of people know him, so he’s a capable enough replacement.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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