Karen Fukuhara: This One’s for the Girls

For a show called The Boys, you can’t help but notice how instrumental its female characters are in advancing the story. “It should totally be called The Girls,” agrees Karen Fukuhara, who’s seated in the greenroom at StyleCaster‘s studio in New York City doing a quick makeup change before she trots off to the next press opportunity.

“The women on the show are driving forces, and I think that’s done intentionally because in the original comics, we didn’t really have that many strong female characters.” Showrunner Eric Kripke made a big effort to change that, although, Fukuhara adds, it never felt like “performative feminism.”

Fukuhara has played The Female in The Boys from the beginning—well, almost. Kimiko is introduced in the fourth episode of the first season. As a character unable to speak due to trauma, Fukuhara has spent the past five years in this role relying heavily on her physicality.

She’s incredible in combat—her favorite sequence is the Dildo Fight from Season 3, and if you knew nothing else about what kind of show this is, that would be enough—but Fukuhara’s facial expressions and physical comedy have been memorable, too. “I have a lot of fun doing them, those funny moments,” she says. “It’s a nice juxtaposition of her being silent, and small but mighty, which makes all of those physical comedy moments fun.”

Season 5 of The Boys will be the show’s last and Homelander’s reign of terror will (hopefully) come to an end. “I know that Kripke has always wanted to end on a good note,” Fukuhara teases, adding that the public announcement was an emotional moment for her. “I had to take a minute,” she admits. “We’ve really built a family, which is something you don’t always get in our line of work. I feel really lucky.”

StyleCaster caught up with The Boys actor to discuss the Season 4 finale, that death, and how Kimiko’s story might end.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead.

You’ve played this character for four seasons as a mute, which, as we learned a few episodes ago, was due to the trauma she suffered at the Shining Light Liberation. In the closing moments of this finale, it appears Kimiko has found her voice. But this person has seen some shit. Why this moment?
The moment was perfect because I always wanted Kimiko’s first speaking moment to be something that’s guttural, something that comes as a reaction to something. She’s trying to say, “Frenchie,” but she’s also trying to fight off those characters from Gen V and she has no other way to say “Frenchie” other than to use her voice. I thought it was really well written.

In the comic books, she first speaks when she’s trying to get The Boys together to stop Butcher. It’s an iconic moment because nobody would have guessed that she’s the person who speaks up about it. She’s the one that convinces everyone to rise to the occasion. So that would have been a cool twist as well.

Kimiko and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) have been in a will-they, won’t-they relationship throughout the show. Some fans thought it wouldn’t happen because of his brief romance with Colin. But they kiss! Can you tell me about that scene?
Neither Tomer nor I knew what was going to happen between them. Kripke did a really good job of leaving it ambiguous for a really long time. But he was talking to us one day, and he just said, “You guys have such good chemistry, we think we’re going to make them an item in the end.” I was elated when he said that because I was shipping them so hard from the beginning. That day was beautiful.

I always wanted Kimiko’s first speaking moment to be something that’s guttural, something that comes as a reaction to something.

Karen Fukuhara

We talked about what kind of kiss it should be. We sent each other examples and then we sent them to Kripke and asked him if this is the vibe we’re going for. But I would never have guessed how it was going to be shot. I think being backlit and having the silhouette, doing the tip-toe kiss, all things worked.

When you say you sent each other examples, what do you mean? Like a kiss mood board?
I can’t remember exactly, but it was a lot of YouTube videos. There are a lot of ways to kiss someone! It could be really passionate or really gentle. We kept it classy.

There was some hostility towards Frenchie’s romance with Colin—a lot of it was homophobic which is really disappointing. Can you speak to that?
I love that Kimiko is accepting of Frenchie’s sexuality. She has moments of jealousy creep in, but it is ultimately because Frenchie has found a separate connection with someone else, not because she has an issue with Frenchie’s bisexual nature. It would hurt just as much if he had a relationship with another woman. People can fall on different parts of the Kinsey Scale, and the beauty of life is that you’re allowed to fall in love with whoever you’d like. Everyone should be allowed to explore their curiosities!

In this final episode, we get a look at just how powerful Butcher has become. He tears Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) in half—a character a lot of fans thought might be strong enough to take on Homelander (Antony Starr).
I’m still in denial about that because I hang out with Claudia a good amount. I keep talking about “Oh, yeah, next season. Where are you going to live next season?” This and that. And she’s like, “Karen, I’m not going to be there.” I totally forgot. It sucks that she’s gone because she’s one of my closest friends on set and we’re gonna miss her so, so much.

She kept it so light-hearted that day. I think it was our wrap day, that scene. I have some photos of her lying on the ground with some green screen pants and she’s smiling and having a great time. A lot of us were showing sadness a lot more than she was. She brought cupcakes for everyone that said, “Thanks for the blood, guts, and semen.” There’s another photo where she’s doing a thumbs-up as Neuman with blood all over her face. It was awesome, I’ll miss her a lot.

You’ve obviously read the comics, so you know how Kimiko’s story ends in that context. For those who don’t want to Google it, in The Boys issue #69, she and Frenchie are killed in the Flatiron Building by a bomb planted by Butcher. Have you and Kripke talked about what happens to Kimiko in the show?
We usually have a little powwow at the beginning of every season—he usually doesn’t tell us the details but he gives us the general arc. I knew Colin was going to come into the picture. I knew that for season 4, Tomer and I wouldn’t be shooting as much together because Frenchie and Kimiko were going to go on their own paths. And I sort of knew they were going to come back together at the end, but I didn’t know how.

So in the same way, I think we’ll get the powwow meeting at the beginning of Season five, but Kripke says he doesn’t know yet. He’s in the writers’ room right now. I’m sure he has a general idea of how it’s going to happen. But so far, I think he only knows the ending of the show.

The Boys is available to stream on Prime Video.

Photography: George Chinsee
Creative Direction: Sasha Purdy
Styling: Marc Eram from A-Frame Agency
Hair: Jae Manuel Cardenas from Tracey Mattingly Agency
Make-up: Kelly Bellevue from Tracey Mattingly Agency