How Boy Kills World Chose Bill Skarsgard’s Internal Voice Explained By Director

While Bill Skarsgård brings plenty of power to the physical version of the character, director Moritz Mohr explains how H. Jon Benjamin was chosen to be Boy Kills World‘s internal voice star. Skarsgård leads the action-comedy as the titular hero, whose traumatic past tied to a rich family that kills off random people in a televised event known as The Culling puts him on a path of revenge against the matriarch of the dystopian society. Alongside Skarsgård and Benjamin, the movie’s ensemble cast includes Brett Gelman, Famke Janssen, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Isaiah Mustafa, Andrew Koji and Sharlto Copley.

During a recent interview with Screen Rant for Boy Kills World‘s release, Mohr reflected on the decision to cast H. Jon Benjamin as the internal voice of Skarsgård’s titular character. The director recalled there being a “very short list” of people he had in mind for the role, recalling his fandom of the actor’s prior work on Archer and Bob’s Burgers being key in his decision to bring Benjamin on as Boy’s voice. Check out what Mohr shared below:

It was a very short list, and Jon Benjamin was on top of it, because I love him for the same reasons you love him. I’m a big Archer fan, I’m a big Bob’s Burgers fan. We knew that the comedy would be an important part of this, and most of the comedy of this movie — or a lot of it — is in Boy’s head, because the world and the story itself is serious. But yeah, so that was the reason, and it was literally, “I love H. Jon Benjamin, he would be a great voice for this.” And that’s why we chose him.

Benjamin’s 2 Biggest Roles Made Him The Perfect Choice For Boy’s Voice

Across his 40-plus-year career, Benjamin has lent his voice talents to a wide variety of projects, ranging from Carl the liquor store clerk in Family Guy to the talking Can of Vegetables in the Wet Hot American Summer franchise. Amidst these, though, it’s ultimately the star’s two most iconic roles of the superspy in FX’s long-running animated spy comedy Archer and family man Bob Belcher in Fox’s still-ongoing animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers that made him the perfect choice for Boy Kills World‘s pseudo-narrator.

In Archer, Benjamin expertly captured the titular character’s over-inflated ego and consistently sarcastic outlook on life, while in Bob’s Burgers and its 2022 movie expansion, he nicely contrasted this with a more self-doubting, kindhearted family patriarch. Meanwhile, in Boy Kills World, his work as the internal voice of Skarsgård’s titular character finds a nice middle ground between these two character types, bringing his self-awareness to his action hero persona as much as all of the pain bubbling beneath Boy’s surface that drives his quest for revenge.

Given the movie’s unique tonal balance between the bloody action and outrageous comedy, it was certainly important for Boy Kills World to find someone who could walk between these different tones with ease. While good direction could just as easily have guided an actor to nail the action-comedy’s shifting tones, having someone well-versed already in portraying a variety of characters is a very helpful resource to lean on, and Benjamiin’s past made him all the better to play Boy’s internal monologue. With Boy Kills World‘s reviews also praising the unique tonal blend, it seems Mohr’s decision is ultimately paying off.

Boy Kills World

Boy Kills World is an action thriller film by director Moritz Mohr, released in 2024. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a young man simply known as “Boy” lives through terrible trauma after his family is killed by a woman named Hilda Van Der Koy, who currently rules the land. Now older and more bloodthirsty than ever, Boy heads into the fray to claim revenge while liberating the world from her tyrannical grasp.

Director

Moritz Mohr

Release Date

April 26, 2024

Studio(s)

Nthibah Pictures , Hammerstone Studios , Ventaro Film

Distributor(s)

Capstone Global

Writers

Tyler Burton Smith , Arend Remmers , Moritz Mohr

Cast

Bill Skarsgard , Famke Janssen , Jessica Rothe , Michelle Dockery , Brett Gelman , Isaiah Mustafa , Yayan Ruhian , Nicholas Crovetti

Runtime

115 Minutes