How “The Boys” season 4 finally recruited super fan Jeffrey Dean Morgan

"When I first saw it, I just knew immediately, 'I gotta be on the show,'" the actor tells EW.

If you're not involved in the TV industry whatsoever, then you definitely won't know about this one specific service that's really grinding Jeffrey Dean Morgan's gears. But it's the reason the Supernatural alum and The Walking Dead star hasn't seen any episodes of The Boys season 4, even though it's the culmination of a years-long mission to get this super fan on the show.

It's called Pix, and it's a secure service that provides professionals in the industry with early access to upcoming series. Critics, for example, will use Pix to watch episodes of The Boys season 4 well in advance of its June 13 premiere on Prime Video to write reviews. Given all the layers of security to access Pix, which includes auto-generated codes, the not-so-tech-savvy Morgan finds it all irritating.

"It always f---s up and it makes me crazy," the actor tells Entertainment Weekly. "They're going to be so mad at me for calling 'em out, but it sucks. I can never sign into it." Morgan is now content to wait to watch the season live with everyone else. It's how he prefers the experience, anyway, because he's a massive fan of The Boys. It's that love for the show, masterminded by his former Supernatural chum, showrunner Eric Kripke, that has kept him motivated to join the cast in some capacity — even when it seemed like the stars just wouldn't align.

Related: The Boys season 4 introduces world's smartest supe and alt-right Firecracker to the Seven

Morgan remembers the first time he watched The Boys season 1 back in July 2019. He already heard bits and pieces about it from Kripke, so he was prepared. "When I first saw it, I just knew immediately, 'I gotta be on the show,'" he says.

The Boys is set in a world where superheroes very much exist, but in corporate America, they are all monetized and treated more like celebrities than actual saviors — which often leads to extremely uncouth behaviors. It's not too dissimilar to one of Morgan's previous projects, Watchmen, the 2009 Zack Snyder-directed movie adaptation of the Alan Moore comics. "They turn it on its ass. It's the deconstruction of a superhero, which in this day and age right now for The Boys to be doing I think is f---ing brilliant," Morgan continues. "When it first came out, it was all Marvel this and Marvel that."

It wasn't until January 2020 that Morgan told his 1 million Twitter (now X) followers to go watch the show. Since season 2 development was already underway by that point, his buddy Kripke replied, "I'll make you a deal. Season 3. I'll write it, and if you're avail, come shoot it." Morgan finds this interaction so comical. "It's not like we don't have each other's f---ing phone numbers or emails," Morgan says. "How we would communicate over Twitter in front of whoever is paying attention, it does make me laugh. And we still do that!"

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Multiple Supernatural alums have crossed over to The Boys in some capacity, including Jensen Ackles, whom Morgan says he would pester for spoilers during the making of season 3. "I'd be like, 'F---ing send me a picture!'" he recalls. The biggest hurdle for Morgan, however, was his schedule on The Walking Dead: Dead City, which headlines the actor's Negan and Lauren Cohan's Maggie from the mothership AMC show. "Didn't work out in season 2, didn't work out in season 3," Morgan says. "I mean, we were talking dates and we were talking characters."

Then, in May 2022, EW published an interview with Kripke, who mentioned he and Morgan "might still remain star-crossed, unfortunately." The article caught Morgan's attention. His response, Morgan says, was essentially, "F--k that. We can make it work. We'll make it work."

And they did. Kripke and his crew in Toronto held Morgan's scenes for The Boys season 4 for the end of production so he had enough time to film Dead City. "I'm incredibly lucky that Eric and the crew allowed that to happen because it's a pain in the ass," Morgan says. "You can't lock a picture, you can't finish anything. They're just waiting for Jeff to f---ing show up to shoot a few scenes."

Related: The Boys boss hopes to cast Jared Padalecki after Walker: 'We have definitely talked about it'

Fans had long speculated that Morgan would be playing Tek Knight, a notable character from the comics, on The Boys. That is, until Derek Wilson debuted as the billionaire supe with a sexual obsession with orifices on spinoff series Gen V. Kripke tells EW that Tek Knight was never on the table for Morgan. "Once the character that he plays came up, we said, 'Oh! That would be perfect for Jeff.' He was always going to play that character if he was able to swing it," he says.

So, who is this character exactly? Well, that's for viewers to find out. "He is an old colleague of Butcher's," Kripke teases, referring to Karl Urban's Billy Butcher. "I can tell you that he shares a lot of Butcher's concern and hatred of superheroes. It really came from the notion of everyone else in The Boys is always trying to pull Butcher back. So what would happen if he started working with someone who wants to push him forward?"

Morgan feels the role he's playing now is "a little bit more perfect" for him than the previous ones Kripke toyed with, though he doesn't elaborate further. "I knew who my scenes would be with, whom I f---ing love," he says. "Karl is a better looking, better acting version of me, but we're the same f---ing motherf---er. To work with that is so much fun."

Morgan is now eager to watch how all the pieces fit together on The Boys season 4 in real time next month alongside fans such as himself — especially if, as he puts it, "Pixs is a f---ing dick hole." Spoken like a true Boys star.