Karen Fukuhara Aims to Connect

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The Japanese-American actor Karen Fukuhara had a startling experience while researching her role for Amazon’s new superhero television show The Boys, based on a comic book created by Garth Ennis. Dutifully, she read the entire original series to get a sense of the tone and style. “I don’t remember which issue it is but there’s this human orgy scene with all the superheroes at one point and I was reading it on the airplane and it was really funny,” she laughs. “The lights in the cabin were off and the screen is really bright! I had to shut my computer because I felt uncomfortable, it was probably not appropriate for the children.”

The excessively crude style of The Boys is used to punctuate the absurdity of a world where pop culture is dominated by superheroes. In this case, truth followed fiction—when Ennis first developed the comic book series in 2006, we were still two years away from Iron Man, the film that kickstarted the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s influence in Hollywood. Although the scenario may feel eerily familiar, The Boys pushes further by imagining a world where superheroes’ popularity is unscrupulously capitalized; they are organized by and operate largely with the backing of Vought-American, an expansive corporation that creates calculated franchises and orchestrates crimes and terrorism as photo-ops to push its political agenda. The prized earners, a group of superheroes known as “The Seven,” are a seemingly benevolent cast, but it’s quickly revealed that when the cameras stop rolling they each relish in indulging in raunchy and violent vices. For some, it’s a destructive drug habit and for others, it’s murdering politicians who won’t bend to their will. “The Boys,” a group of five misfits, act as an equalizer for this unruly behavior—led by a man called Butcher (played by Karl Urban), they’ve all been wronged by superheroes and are united in their endeavor to expose all of their indiscretions and keep their behavior in line.

The 27-year-old Fukuhara rounds out The Boys as the lone female character in the vigilante group. After she is unwilling or unable to speak to tell them her name, Butcher flippantly refers to her as “The Female,” a nickname that sticks, and she ends up joining the team after she is rescued from a lengthy, torturous imprisonment and is discovered to have a rather useful yearning for violence and murder. The Female’s origin story has been altered and expanded in the television series, allowing Fukuhara more freedom to explore the multidimensional levels of her character—she worked closely with showrunner Eric Kripke to assure that audiences would be able to relate to the Female beyond her ruthless brutality. “I was talking to Eric about what he wanted to do with the serializing and he was saying it’s important to figure out how The Female would’ve been and what she would’ve been like if she had a normal environment to grow up in,” she says. “She’s not all violence, she’s not all evil; she has reasons for what she does and she’s very human.”

It might seem like a challenge to humanize a murderer, but Fukuhara is well-practiced from her previous roles. The Los Angeles native was still an unknown actor when she made her début in Suicide Squad as Katana, a violent, masked killer with a supernatural sword—trained in martial arts and fluent in Japanese, she was a natural choice to play the stoic superhero and expertly held her own alongside co-stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Her portrayal led to her lead role in the independent film Stray, directed by Joe Sill, as a mysterious young woman with mystical powers on a mission to uncover her mother’s murderer. It’s an impressive string of dark performances considering Fukuhara herself is bright and cheerful in person, but for the actor, it’s not about seeking out intentionally heavy roles, but simply connecting with characters on a deep, emotional level. She uses the same empathetic understanding to round out The Female, adding a relatability to the antihero. “I think her need for love is something I really related to because as you read the comics, she’s very violent and if you just look over her character it’s hard to recognize yourself within her,” says Fukuhara. “But I think the biggest thing I related to was her need for love, for a family, and her need to be accepted.”

In a time with a new focus on diversity and inclusion, a series titled “The Boys” at first glance may seem a little anachronistic. The Boys, however, isn’t a showcase of machismo and testosterone-filled superhero heroism—it’s an unnervingly relevant and satirical look at what happens when celebrity worship combines with politics and power. While the television series retains the nihilistic tone and dark humor of the books, there have been updates to account for our current political climate: Some outdated and offensive racial and homophobic slang has been omitted and plotlines have been updated for the #MeToo era. Typical “boys will be boys” behavior is now met with consequences—in the first episode, a female character is forced to perform sexual acts in order to keep her job, but later in the series finds strength in outing and shaming her attacker publicly, whereas in the comic books, the same workplace sexual harassment incident was amplified in intensity and took place largely without consequence. “There are scenes and moments where the female characters are going through the same struggles that are occurring in everyday life,” says Fukuhara, “but we’re not praising or glorifying those moments. We’re trying to see how these female characters take that instance and how they navigate around it. And there are ramifications for the instigators.” Amazon is clearly confident that these themes and messages will resonate with its viewers: Prior to the season premiere, The Boys has already been renewed for season two.

While filming The Boys in Toronto, Fukuhara was also working on another project. Peppered in during her production schedule, she would head into a recording studio to record lines for her character Glimmer, a magical princess, in the animated Netflix revival of the Eighties classic cartoon She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In contrast to The Female, Glimmer is a closer reflection of Fukuhara’s effervescent personality. “It was a breath of fresh air to be able to tap into a different side of myself because I was so dark in The Female and was really trying to be present,” she explains, “whereas for Glimmer it was like, ‘Oh everything’s fine! I have to save the world, I’m magic!'”

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has received critical praise for its deliberately diverse characters and cast as well as for exploring the themes of love, friendship, isolation, and even genocide. Glimmer is one of several princesses in the kingdom of Etherea; bubbly and excitable, she’s eager to help in the fight against The Horde but her enthusiasm sometimes has unintended consequences. The styling and storytelling of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power allows a lot of playfulness within the world. Bright and colorful, each character is set with her own magical powers and color palette—for Glimmer, it’s sparkly pink hair and teleportation. “I always thought voice acting was only meant for voice actors that specifically do voice acting,” says Fukuhara. “It’s just so much fun to not be tied down to your appearance, your race, your ethnicity, your body type. Whatever restrictions that you may have on film and TV, you don’t have in voice acting.”

Being Japanese-American, Fukuhara understands the difficulties that can come with being limited by race. When she was first cast as Katana back in 2016, there was still very much a glut of Asian characters portrayed in films and television shows, and barely any conversation about Asian inclusion. “I used to get more auditions that were catered towards only casting Asians but lately there are a lot more roles that are open ethnicity and they’re free for all,” she says. “I think a lot has changed. There are Asian female leads and we’re not just an assistant, a doctor, the sidekick, or the friend. I think our stories are finally getting told and it’s really nice and really cool.”

With the success of Crazy Rich Asians and a push for diversity in Hollywood there has been an optimistic shift, but Fukuhara still believes there’s more room for improvement and says that she would specifically love to see more uniquely Asian-American stories be told, stories that she noticed were absent during her childhood. “It’s important to be able to see yourself represented on screen, especially as a kid. It’s acceptance, it’s hope, it opens up doors, and it opens up opportunities as well,” she says. “If you see someone on screen that looks like you it gives you hope that you can be that person or you can have that job or career, you can have that life. It’s a lot about self-acceptance through seeing yourself through examples and role models on screen.”

For Fukuhara, her joy of being an actor comes from being a part of a story that resonates and affects an audience. She says that although she would love to work on a comedy for her next project, she will be happy as long as it perpetuates and encourages that bond. “The connection you can have with someone that’s not physically right in front of you, the ability to move someone, to inspire someone is really great,” she says. “I’ve definitely seen movies where I’m just so touched that it inspires me to do something in my life, or if I’m feeling down about something and the subject matter is relatable, I don’t feel alone. Our career field is the only career field that praises any kind of negativity or loss or pain, which I thought was really interesting. Usually, pain means a bad thing in our lives but we can use that to help other people.”

The Boys is streaming now on Amazon Prime. The third season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is out August 2 on Netflix.