The Boys: The On-Set Lube Blunder That Made Herogasm Super Hard
"The Boys," Amazon Prime Video's adaptation of Garth Ennis' twisted take on superhero comics, has been known for finding new ways to make fans squirm. Even executive producer Seth Rogen, known for his blue sense of humor, says the writers still find new ways to shock him. But filming the show's over-the-top scenes can be equally uncomfortable for those working on them. One such instance led to quite a sticky situation, with a film set full of people accidentally covered in personal lubricant while trying to shoot a superhero orgy in the middle of a global pandemic.
The incident took place while filming Season 3's infamous "Herogasm" episode of "The Boys," which revolves around an enormous orgy for superheroes. Because of shooting guidelines for COVID-19, bottles of hand sanitizer had to be scattered around the set. And because the episode was set at an orgy, bottles of lube were used as part of the set design. But since both hand sanitizer and lube are clear, viscous liquids that come in somewhat nondescript bottles, it wasn't easy to keep track of which substance was in which bottle.
According to showrunner Eric Kripke, plenty of people on set mixed the two up. Kripke told Entertainment Weekly, "Dotted all over the set are these huge bottles of lube as set decoration, but also dotted around the set are huge bottles of hand sanitizer because of COVID. So literally every 10 minutes you would hear someone just yell, 'Oh, s***!' because they thought they were sanitizing their hands, but they just got a huge gooping handful of lube. So, maybe that sums up what it's like trying to shoot an orgy during COVID."
Cleanliness was close to lubrication on Herogasm, as Erin Moriarty found out
On-set mix-ups involving personal lubricant and hand sanitizer dogged the production for the "Herogasm" episode of "The Boys," and one person who found themselves unexpectedly slippery as a result was Erin Moriarty, who plays Starlight on the series. When Moriarty showed up at the Toronto set where the episode was shot, she was startled to see so much nakedness on set. "By day five, I was walking around, like, a house full of naked people and I was like, 'Yeah, they may as well be dressed," Moriarty said, adding that she quickly became desensitized to it all.
But even so, she was confronted with a clear and rather goopy reminder of just what the production was creating when she attempted to sanitize her hands. "I was walking around and touching all of these dildos," Moriarty said, "and I go to use some hand sanitizer. And I pressed the pump, and the entire crew went, 'No, no, no, no, no!' And what it was, was lube. Because there were different lube and condom stations throughout the whole house—you know, because it's a massive orgy—and I was like, 'Oh, my god. That just reflects and symbolizes so much.'"
Both Moriarty and showrunner Eric Kripke stressed that multiple intimacy coordinators were on set during the filming of "Herogasm" to make sure the hilariously over-the-top orgiastic sequences were created in an environment of consent and safety. That's one reason why Moriarty felt so comfortable despite the wild things people around her were doing with their extremities. But even so, a few things were bound to go wrong. If the worst thing to happen was a few people with extra-slippery hands, then in the parlance of Karl Urban's Billy Butcher, that's downright diabolical.