A very familiar face on "The Boys" didn't always look like that. Here's the character that was recast right in front of your eyes without you noticing.
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00:00A very familiar face on The Boys didn't always look like that.
00:04Here's the character that was recast right in front of your eyes, without you noticing.
00:09Recasting happens all the time.
00:10Tragedy sometimes strikes, like in the case of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry
00:14Potter series, where Michael Gambon assumed the role following the passing of the original
00:18performer Richard Harris.
00:20Oftentimes, recasting is a result of scheduling conflicts, like when May-December breakout
00:24star Charles Melton took over the role of Reggie Mantle on Riverdale due to original
00:28actor Ross Butler's scheduling conflict with 13 Reasons Why.
00:32And sometimes a character is recast simply because they weren't right for the role,
00:35as was famously the case with Eric Stoltz, who was replaced by Michael J. Fox after six
00:40weeks of shooting Back to the Future.
00:42In all of these instances, fans were well aware of the recastings as they happened.
00:46But once a person has been playing a role long enough, audiences sometimes forget they
00:49were ever recast in the first place.
00:52This definitely happened with Melton on Riverdale, and it also happened with Cameron Crovetti
00:56as Ryan on The Boys.
00:59That's right, a different actor was initially playing Ryan Butcher than the angsty teenage
01:02son of Homelander that audiences are used to.
01:05Anti-hero Billy Butcher is motivated to take down Supes because of his unbridled hatred
01:09toward Homelander, who he views as responsible for the death of his wife, Becca.
01:13In the season one finale, however, it was revealed that not only was Becca still alive,
01:17but that she was raising her son Ryan in private, as he was conceived as a result of Homelander
01:21assaulting Becca.
01:23Ryan was played by Parker Corneau, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the all-American
01:28apple of Homelander's eye.
01:30But when the show returned for season two, Corneau was out, and Crovetti was in.
01:34So what happened?
01:36The Boys was Parker Corneau's first professional credit, with IMDb listing his only other credits
01:40as Dutch Kid No. 1 on the 2019 show Impulse, and the role of young David Arnold in the
01:452022 film Burden.
01:47This is to say that his acting resume doesn't allow for a strong showcase of his potential
01:51talent.
01:52And given the increased presence of Ryan Butcher in the subsequent seasons, the actor playing
01:56him needed to have some serious acting chops.
01:59Corneau may be a very talented young actor, but without a resume to show that he can truly
02:02handle the material, The Boys' creative team likely needed to hedge its bets on someone
02:06with more experience.
02:08Enter Cameron Crovetti.
02:10While Crovetti looks quite a bit more like Becca than he does Homelander, he's got an
02:13imposing resume.
02:15Before joining The Boys in 2020, Crovetti had some high-profile credits to his name,
02:19and those have only expanded in the years since.
02:22He and his brother Nicholas played twins Josh and Max Wright on the HBO series Big Little
02:26Lies, something the pair would do again as twins Elias and Lucas in the American remake
02:30of the Austrian horror film Goodnight Mommy.
02:33He's clearly very comfortable working in genres that boast violence, anguish, and buckets
02:37of blood.
02:38Ryan Butcher is one of the most complicated roles on The Boys, as the teenager is navigating
02:42superpowers he didn't know he had, the realization that his father is the most powerful man on
02:47Earth.
02:48And at the end of season two, Ryan accidentally kills his mother Becca with his uncontrolled
02:52heat ray vision while trying to protect her from the alt-right soup's stormfront.
02:56These are seriously intense and emotionally demanding situations, requiring a very talented
03:00young actor to pull off.
03:02Crovetti was the right call, even if he looks wildly different from Kornow.
03:07Given the noticeable differences in appearance, one would think that audiences would have
03:10remembered that Ryan was recast.
03:12But after a popular ex-user dedicated to sharing The Boys' out-of-context clips noted that
03:17they were rewatching season one and had completely forgotten that Ryan had been recast for season
03:21two, hundreds of fans admitted to also having forgotten the original actor's performance
03:25at the end of season one.
03:27One posted,
03:28"'Now how don't I remember the one from season one?
03:30I had it burned in my memory that the current Ryan played him all through the series.'"
03:34Plenty of fans shared a similar sentiment.
03:37More than a few called this a case of the Mandela Effect, or widespread false memories
03:41misremembered by a large group of people.
03:43I'm your father, and we are a family.
03:52More than likely, the reason so many have misremembered the recasting is simply that
03:55in season one, Ryan was a glorified cameo, while in season two and beyond, Ryan is a
04:00fully-fledged character with his own arc.
04:03Season one premiered on July 26, 2019, but season two didn't roll out until September
04:084, 2020, over a year later.
04:11The season two trailer showed clips from the final moment of the season one finale, but
04:14intentionally only showed Becca and Homelander, saving Ryan's reveal for a solo shot in an
04:19unrelated scene.
04:21This removes any reminder of the new Ryan not being in the scene, and makes it pretty
04:24easy to forget what a kid looked like who was only shown for a few minutes of screen
04:28time.
04:29The Boys is available to stream on Prime Video.