How ‘The Boys’ Season 3 Premiere Got That Surprise Charlize Theron Cameo

In the opening minutes of The Boys Season 3 — and spoilers past this point — we’re treated to a scene showing the wreckage of Vought Tower. Enter Homelander (Antony Starr), facing down a mystery villain, your first indication that this isn’t “real” at all… And in fact, it’s the climactic scene of Dawn of the Seven, the movie within the show that mercilessly mocks Avengers, Justice League, and everything in between.

But the biggest surprise isn’t the scene itself, it’s who shows up. As we find out later, after the events of Season 2, Dawn of the Seven went through massive reshoots a la Justice League (sobbing while having sex in the bathroom, PJ Byrne’s director admits that Tony Gilroy reshot most of the movie, a riff on the actual events that reportedly happened on Rogue One). Those changes were made specifically to address what becomes a major Season 3 plot-point, that the world knows Homelander dated Stormfront (Aya Cash), a superhero who turned out to be a literal, World War II era Nazi.

So who can play the perfect Stormfront in Dawn of the Seven? None other than 2022’s Cameo Queen herself, Charlize Theron. And when asked about how The Boys got Theron to show up for the scene, according to showrunner Eric Kripke, it was all up to Executive Producer Seth Rogen.

“We got Charlize the way we got most of our cameos, which is the rigorous process of whoever returns Seth Rogen’s calls,” Kripke said. “They had just made the Long Shot together and she was so sweet and awesome and hilarious and agreed to do it. I actually felt bad because I think she was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll pop in and do a cameo. What is that? A couple hours?’ and then we’re having a suit designed for her. Let’s just go in for fittings, just to show up and be there all day. I hope Seth got her a very expensive thank you gift because we all really owe her for how she helped us out.”

It is a relatively brief appearance, but as usual for The Boys, a pointed one. Versus Cash, whose casting cleverly played against her Nazi origins, Theron is tall, blonde, and beautiful — exactly who you would think of when you think “Nazi supervillain.” And in the constantly shifting PR-focused world of The Boys, that’s exactly the casting choice Vought would make as they try to scrub Stormfront’s stink off Homelander, and rehabilitate his image.

Though we only get to see a little bit from Theron including some lightning effects and the beginnings of a fight with superteam The Seven, here’s hoping that after Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and now The Boys, we get a Theron cameo hat trick before the year ends. Hey, maybe they can edit her into Morbius somehow? Fingers crossed.

The Boys streams new episodes every Friday on Prime Video.