"I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit when I got the job offer for this, I hadn't watched The Boys yet," shared the supervising director of The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Giancarlo Volpe. However, that didn't stop him from coming onboard when the animated series came on his radar. He found his perspective to be "interesting" as the show had come up previously in conversations with peers and he found himself instantly hooked.
Volpe continued to tell us, "Suddenly, I was in this interesting situation where I was binging a show that I'm very much into, but also being courted to work on a spin-off of it at the same time. That was a new experience for me." The famed animator and director has worked on numerous hit television series such as, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Stars vs. the Forces of Evil. When it came to working on The Boys spin-off, he oversaw the work of the series' multiple directors, directed the episode "I'm Your Pusher" and co-directed "One Plus One Equals Two". In a conversation with Game ZXC, Giancarlo Volpe discussed his favorite episodes, some of the challenges he faced while overseeing the production, and his experience occupying the director chair.
Game ZXC: Given the show's anthology nature, did you face any challenges when it came to collaborating with many people on the creative team?
Giancarlo Volpe: Yeah, because there's what Simon [Racioppa] wants versus what Amazon wants, versus what the director wants, versus what the writer wants. There's all these different moving parts. What works in those situations is there's a chain of command, so I sort of answer to Simon, and Simon answers to Eric Kripke. We really leaned on our respective directors to be the point person on their specific shorts because it was a lot of stuff to do in a very short amount of time.
GR: What was your experience directing two episodes?
Volpe: I always like to say I directed one and a half. I did "I'm Your Pusher" straight through. But Jae Kim, who is a phenomenal artists and director, really started "One Plus One" and then he had job commitments on another things, so he had to leave early. I took over and did some tedious parts, like dragging it over the finish line. If anything, I put my stamp on all eight episodes, but I had a lighter touch on many of the shorts because our directors were so competent. I put a slightly heavier touch on "One Plus One" just because it needed someone in charge.
GR: "I'm Your Pusher" has this all-star cast: Kieran Culkin, Simon Pegg, Michael Cera. What was your first reaction to their involvement?
Volpe: Now, when I look back, it's like holy crap. It's a weird Edgar Wright reunion because it's got Simon Pegg, and it's got Kieran Culkin and Michael Cera, who were in Scott Pilgrim. It's this weird, unintentional Edgar Wright reunion episode. It was really awesome. They were all so great.
GR: Do you have a favorite episode or scene from the series?
Volpe: Oh, man, I almost have a code of honor. I don't like to say that. It's almost like asking me which kid I love the most. That aside, because I think they're all really good, I'm really just enamored by "John and Sun-Hee". It's such an accomplishment in terms of just how dramatic it is and how emotional it is. It made us cry when we watched it. It's a cool episode, and then also really love "BFFs" because it's such an absurd episode, but it somehow has charm. It just gives no f**ks. Those are, kind of, my two favorites for very different reasons.
The Boys Presents: Diabolical is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.