In the first season of Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys we met a character not seen in the original comics – Cherie, a lady who was handy with explosives and the lover of Tomer Capron’s Frenchie. With the second season now airing, Paul Simpson caught up with Canadian actor Jordana Lajoie…

 

Thank you for some enjoyable scenes in the first season of The Boys and looking forward to seeing what happens in the second year. Will we see a lot of her in the new episodes when they’re released?

Well, that’s a very good question, it all depends on what they decide to keep. I know I shot more for this season but the sad reality is that we do shoot a lot and we have to cut down. So depending on how they want to go with the story… It’s hard to say.

How did you get involved with it in the first place? Was it the standard audition route or was it a project that you heard about?

It was exactly as you said: it was the straight self tape request. I was working on something else and my agent asked me to tape this thing. I didn’t know much about it. I just put myself on tape and didn’t really think about it much.

I got a call and my agent said ‘Look, you have to travel in a couple days because you actually booked that thing’. So it’s really only when I got to Toronto that I started prepping for this role.

With the self tape, did they give you any sides to work from or give you any indication of who the character was or was it just very much a presentation of ‘this is me’?

A little bit of both. I had a script to work from but I did not know anything about the character. It was a very limited description. So I just gave what felt most natural and organic and how I wanted to interpret this specific role and that’s pretty much it.

When you got to Toronto  and you had more of an idea of who she was, did you look into the original world of the comics? Because obviously she’s an original creation albeit based on a character that exists in there?

That’s an excellent question. Having found out that I was going to be part of a project that was based on comic books, that I’ve never read myself, I sort of felt apprehensive so I asked a friend who own the comic books if I could borrow those books. I started reading and looking at Frenchie’s character and so I created a bit of a backstory. Thankfully [Tomer Capon who plays] Frenchie and I got to meet well before shooting and we decided to hang out and do crazy little things just to create some kind of bond; you don’t always get to do that, but we wanted to do that. That was fun because I could feed off of his energy, I got to know Tomer a little better and then I created my backstory and my character with very little time. But it was good, it was fun.

How much time did you have? Was it one of those fly in, makeup and costume and you’re on set ten minutes later jobs?

Sort of, I would say. Because I was working on something else, it feels like it was a short amount of time, it really did feel like that. That’s the thing when you’re working on two different things.

I can’t really tell you how many days but I would say less than a week. I booked it and a few days later I had to go to Toronto, but the good thing was that I got to meet Tomar and we hung out on our own and did our own little Cherie thing, and I got to meet [showrunner] Eric [Kripke] when he was shooting something else. I got a feel of the energy on set which again, you don’t get to do all the time.

By no means. Lots of the time with these things you’re in, out and there’s such secrecy around them.

There’s that as well.

Are you a comic book fan? Is it something that you read growing up or is this a world that…

Yes, absolutely I’m a comic book fan, but for me it’s been a little while. I still have lots of comics, I’m very proud of them. I don’t really read them as much as I used to – if anything I keep them stored and hopefully one day they’re going to be worth something. So definitely a comic book fan but I didn’t get into Garth and Darick’s world. One of my very good friends is a huge Preacher, The Boys fan, he has all of them so I was very blessed that I still have friends in their thirties that love comic books and are major nerds. He came through and that was fun.

What was the most challenging part of filming for you?

The most challenging I think for me, was to create a full character. You don’t know much about Cherie. I think the hardest thing for me was my own thoughts. Sometimes you’re doing a great job but you think ‘Am I even doing enough?’

Sometimes it’s just getting those thoughts out of your brain because I definitely felt apprehension because she didn’t exist [in the original comics]. I didn’t know how people would accept her and again, you don’t know what is kept and what isn’t kept.

When you see the final results, it’s great: she’s mysterious, we don’t know much about her so there’s always a chance for her to become something even bigger.

So for me, the challenge was just my thoughts. Just trying to go in, have fun and do your thing and then let the writers do what they want to do. At the end of the day you’re paint on a canvas. You’re there to serve the story, so just get out of your own head kind of thing.

What did you think of her as a character? You’ve spent some time in her head as you’re going along: is she the sort of person you’d get on with in real life?

Oh I really love that question. I think she and I have lots of things in common so I wouldn’t be afraid of her if I ever met her in real life. She’s very fascinating and she’s smarter than she may look.

When I created this character, especially for season two, I just added layers on top of layers. As you know, you can have people working a certain way that are really really smart and she knows her stuff really really well. I did lots of work on the background story as far as weapons and learning the differences between small arms and long guns, all that jazz – for me that was fun.

She’s got that tomboyish quality that I’m attracted to. I love strong women who aren’t afraid of speaking their minds and she’s a bit of a free spirit as well so that’s another thing that I really like about her. I don’t think she’s the type of person that’s pretentious or trying to be someone that she’s not, and again, I love that in people.

I would say yes, I have had friends that are sort of like that. You don’t always have them around when your parents are around. They’re certainly fun and I definitely dig her energy.

So, going back, what got you into acting in the first place? Are you one of those people who came singing and dancing out of the womb and was ready for the spotlight the second that you were born? Or was it something that grew on you at school or whatever?

I think it’s a bit of both to be honest. I grew up an only child and it’s not that I didn’t have many friends, it’s just that we didn’t really invite people. My friends were my cousins. So if I could see them every now and then that would be great, we would put on little plays – you know how kids are.

But a lot of times I was alone. So, being alone I used my imagination. I’d have invisible friends, but you slowly grow out of it and then, I was always very drawn to that world but I felt like there was always something stopping me, I can’t explain what it is.

So, I was studying political science and I had taken classes on the side, just for speech and all that jazz and I really loved it. I was so pissed that I loved it so much because it’s kind of going against everything that I had set up my life to be.

I was studying political science, I was going to become an international lawyer advocate and much to my mum’s dismay at first, I caught the acting bug, I liked the classes I took on the side. So, I took a detour and applied and auditioned for this theatre school – so I’m a classically trained theatre actor – and I got in and I was like “OK, now’s the time to do it. If you’re not going to do it, you’ll end up regretting it, just do it. And if anything, if you fail – great. You can become a lawyer at any time in your life, thirties, forties it doesn’t really matter.” But for some reason, especially female actresses have a bit of shorter shelf life. I don’t like to say that, really I don’t believe it, I think it’s complete BS but whatever. It is what it is.

A lot of it is perception

Exactly, I agree

Whereabouts did you study?

I studied in Montreal, Quebec, for three years, a nice good theatre school and I did take some film acting classes. As soon as we graduated, I’d say about six months later I booked my first big TV contract which was in the French world, a big deal for me and it was great. It wasn’t theatre, it was TV so it was a bit out of my realm but it was fun, it was great.

So what are you up to at the moment? Apart from surviving the pandemic

Right now I’m about to embark on possibly taking some nice writing classes and development classes at UCLA. I have some great ideas and we’re trying to produce a few projects here but nothing that I’m going to speak about just yet.

Thanks to Monique Gonzalez for help in arranging this interview; Jordana monochrome shot :The Image Salon in collaboration with Daniel Esteban and Hailey Voorand

The Boys is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video with new episodes released every Friday to October 10.