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Showrunners often draw from the lives of their actors to flesh out the characters they play. Robin from How I Met Your Mother famously only became Canadian because Colbie Smulders was from the Great White North. But few characters have been more shaped by the people playing them than Black Noir from The Boys. The man behind the mask has lent not just one but two critical weaknesses to the mysterious superhero.

Minor spoilers for The Boys season four lie ahead, so proceed with caution.

The original Black Noir, before he met an untimely end in season three of The Boys, had a severe nut allergy, something that came from his actor, Nathan Mitchell, as a way to give a more human weakness to the relentless killer. But when the character returned in season four, the writers weren’t done using Mitchell to help shape his character.

Despite the new Black Noir being a different character in season four of The Boys, it is still Nathan Mitchell beneath the mask. According to the rest of the cast, his tendency to fall asleep on set also made its way into the script. Chase Crawford explained during the Happy Sad Confused podcast with several other members of The Boys cast, that “We’ll be in scenes and he’s literally asleep. He’ll fall asleep!”

Antony Starr, who plays the terrifying Homelander on the show, shared that, “He legit falls asleep. There’s a line in there, ‘Is Noir asleep?’ and he wakes up and goes, ‘I’m narcoleptic!’ which he f***ing is in real life! He’s fallen asleep at the table in that suit in real life. Nathan is almost narcoleptic.”

So, The Boy’s Black Noir has two different weaknesses from the actor beneath the mask. You could make the case that Nathan Mitchell is unfortunate, but at least he’s memorable, right?

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