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Anyone familiar with The Boys knows that Simon Pegg played a particular role in the development of Hughie — which is to say, he’s pretty much the exact visual inspiration for the original comic book incarnation of the character. While Pegg himself wasn’t upset about this, that’s not to say that no-one was, as the actor himself revealed.

Speaking during his panel with Nick Frost at Rose City Comic Con 2024, Pegg was asked how he felt about inspiring artist Darick Robertson’s depiction of Hughie in the comic book series. “I opened the comic book in 2008, someone sent it to me, and saw myself on the page as Hughie. I thought, ‘This is cool,’ and I contacted Darick Robertson,” he explained. “I think he’d seen Spaced, and he kind of thought, ‘Oh, he’d make quite a nice sort of inspiration for Hughie, because it’s sort of an ordinary guy.’ He didn’t really ask my permission, but I wasn’t bothered by that! I was quite flattered… and then DC wrote me a letter.”

Yes, DC. For those who don’t remember, DC published the first six issues of The Boys before pulling out of the project over concerns about the series’ extreme content — or, as Pegg put it, “DC published The Boys initially, before they just went noooooooo. It was too outrageous for DC and their family values.”

The letter DC sent, Pegg said, “went, ‘Hi Simon! I hear you’re really happy about Hughie looking like you in The Boys. Don’t sue us! Sign this contract!’ I was perfectly happy, and I did sign the contract.”

The moral of this story might depend on whether or not you work in the legal field, of course. For some, it’s “Simon Pegg seems like a very calm, very reasonable man who was flattered by his likeness showing up in The Boys.” And for others, it’s very possibly, “Get those likeness rights sorted out before things make it to print, otherwise you’ll just have to cross your fingers and hope that everyone is as calm and reasonable as Simon Pegg.”

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