Composer Chris Lennertz tells us about that wild musical number on The Boys season 4

There were a lot of wild moments in the first three episodes of The Boys season 4. And while the so-called Sauna Scene might have somewhat broken the internet — and the fandom — for my money the stand-out was Episode 3’s Vought on Ice musical number, “Let’s Put The Christ Back In Christmas.”

The catchy, Book of Mormon-esque number was written by Chris Lennertz, who has composed the music for The Boys and all of its spinoffs, as well as other shows from showrunner Eric Kripke like Supernatural and Revolution. And if you happened to take a trip to Disneyland in 2023, you could have caught Rogers: The Musical, a full-on musical about Steve Rogers, aka Captain America; Lennertz wrote the music for that as well. For The Boys number, he assembled a veritable Avengers of Broadway stars: Tony Award-nominee Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon, Girls), Tony Award-nominee Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Hairspray), and Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart (Aladdin, Hamilton). 

“Andrew was the tough one to get in touch with,” Lennertz told Winter is Coming about the getting the cast together for the number. “I kept trying to get in touch with him and trying to get in touch with him. And luckily, I've done three movies with Josh Gad in them and a charity function where he was the host. I kept emailing Josh. I'm like, ‘is there any way?’ And so finally, he got back to me and was like, ‘All right. Call this person, they'll get you in touch with Andrew,’ who was actually in London at the time. So we flew to London. I had another thing in Europe. We flew to London and recorded Andrew at Abbey Road, whereas we got James and Shoshana in New York.”

To find out more about how the wild number came together, Lennertz’s long partnership with Kripke, and whether The Boys will go full musical in Season 5, read on.

Winter Is Coming: So I believe you're pretty much given free rein here. What was the actual prompt in the script for Put the Christ back in Christmas?

Chris Lennertz: So the actual prompt was, we need to write something that's like Disney On Ice about the war on Christmas and Homelander's trying to... Or Vought's trying to get Homelander's numbers back up, so they're leaning into the far-right Christian conservative movement to try to boost popularity. So it was just basically that, the title was the only thing that was actually there, and it was maybe missing one word. And I was like, "Oh wait, if you do, let's put the Christ back... You put ‘Christ’ right on the downbeat and it's catchy already." So it jumped in my head pretty quick. I was surprised at how fast it came.

I know every song is different, but in this case, do you start with the lyrics? Do you start with the music? Do you go back and forth? What's your process like?

For me, I almost always start with lyrics for the chorus. I always start with, "What's that thing? What's that kernel nugget that everyone's going to not be able to get out of their head? How do we make the earworm, as they say?" And the first two lines I knew that I wanted to start with and repeat, "Let's put the Christ back in Christmas." And then it was, "Let's make Jesus proud," was the one that came up next. I said, "Okay. So I got to find something that rhymes with proud." We just “sing it out loud” and it starts to roll in in that way. It's the way it goes. And once I got that first chorus, I was like, "All right. I know what this is exactly." 

I knew who was going to be in the scene. I knew it would be Homelander and Maeve, and then Jesus was there. I was the one who called Kripke. I'm like, "So can Jesus sing?" And he's like, "Yeah, of course, why not?" I'm like, "Great. It'll be a trio." So that was how that was all born.

I know I'm talking about The Boys here, but were there any lyrics at any point that went too far that you need to pull back on, or were they like, "Push it even farther?"

No. The good thing about having worked with Eric for 30 years, and especially on this show for so long, is I'm not sure I can ever out-boundary Eric. Usually, if there's anything, he'll be like, "Let's take it one more step further." The thing with Eric, though, is he's not mean. If it would have gotten mean, I know there are trolls all over the internet and I'm sure there are grumbling people at Fox News somewhere about this thing. But quite honestly… There's nothing mean towards Jesus or Christianity. I love Christmas. My family calls me Christmas Chris. I’m literally like Clark Griswold. The song is only poking fun of people who aren't okay with people who don't celebrate Christmas. You want to celebrate Christmas, have at it. I say Merry Christmas all the time. So it's really not a mean-spirited song. It's a funny song. It's a satirical song about people who think that their way is the only way, and that's something that both Eric and I can get behind.

Once you have these three parts, you assembled a Broadway Avengers for this. How did you get Andrew Rannells, Shoshana Bean, and James Monroe Iglehart on board?

Well, so I knew what I wanted. I pitched that idea to Eric at the beginning and I'm like, "Look, it might cost us a little more and it might take us a little while, but…” First of all, we knew that we had Charlize [Theron] last year, and now we knew that we had Will Ferrell coming in. So I'm like, we need to keep going with this guest star situation. On ice shows, you don't actually have to see the stars because everyone lip-syncs on an ice show because no high-end ice skaters are also great singers. So I'm like, we can get anybody we want. And so I knew from the very beginning that I wanted Shoshana and Andrew.

I'm such huge fans of theirs. And those were the ones that were a little tougher because I hadn't worked with them when I got that first idea. I had worked with James on another thing, which made it a little easier to get in touch with him. But that was a whole other great idea because I'm like, "All right. Our Jesus is definitely going to be Black. That's absolutely 100%." So I called James. What I didn't know about James is that he is a giant, giant comic book fan, like nerd, comic book fan, and he loves The Boys. So that was an easy sell.

I ended up getting to Shoshana through a friend of mine out here who actually went to high school with her and is a producer-arranger. And I said, "Could you please get me in touch with her?" And she was really into it right from the very beginning.

And then Andrew was the tough one to get in touch with. I kept trying to get in touch with him and trying to get in touch with him. And luckily, I've done three movies with Josh Gad in them and a charity function where he was the host. I kept emailing Josh. I'm like, is there any way? And so finally, he got back to me and was like, "All right. Call this person, they'll get you in touch with Andrew," who was actually in London at the time. So we flew to London. I had another thing in Europe. We flew to London and recorded Andrew at Abbey Road, whereas we got James and Shoshana in New York.

It's an ice show and that's a very different sort of number… I know a lot of that's on the physicality and how they're doing it, but does the ice show of it all impact how you're recording the number?

It definitely affects the arrangement. Eric said from the very beginning, he's like, "It needs to be that Frozen on Ice, that kind of thing." There's one thing I got to say about any part of The Boys when we do our satire is we do our research. And I listened to so many ice shows and I started to really figure out, okay, they always have really sparkly bells and synths and things like that. So we're going to have lots of bells and sleigh bells and tubular bells. And I knew that was going to be part of it. They're almost always up-tempo. And then they usually have big background choruses and I'm like, "Well, we already have Jesus coming down from the rafters, so it's easy to put a bunch of angels in it."

And I didn't know until I actually saw the first run through that they were actually going to make the angels ice skaters too, which was pretty great. But as it came together, it ws like, awhat can we add to the arrangement to really hype up the stereotype of an ice show, which is just smiley, smiley, sparkly, sparkly all the time.

You've been working with Eric Kripke over multiple projects for a really long time. Other than he's the guy who's giving you jobs, what is it about that partnership that works?

Oh my God. Well, we were friends first. I mean, that was the thing. We were fraternity brothers at USC long, long ago, 30 years ago almost. But the day I met him... I grew up in Pennsylvania. I was born in Boston. He's from Toledo and we're both movie nerds. And so the first day I met him, we talked for an hour, hour and a half about Spielberg and Scorsese, and all the different movies we liked, and why music made a difference in those movies. And we just had that instant connection. And so right away, whenever he started making short films in college, he just called me right away and he was like, "Can you do it?" And so we did, I don't know, three, four freebie short films in college, plus we did some independent things after college. So by the time we got to Supernatural, we had been in recording studios together.

We had gone to Sundance together and slept on floors, and 13 people in a one-bedroom apartment. So we had done that guerrilla-style filmmaking thing already. So when we got to real big shows and things like this, there's a shorthand, and he can say something like, "When that guy goes through the door, do the thing with the little move." And I'm like, "Okay. I know what that means," which is super helpful, and it makes the process fast and fun.

And then the other thing is he is the only producer showrunner that I've ever seen that is literally open to anything. It's almost always like, "Yeah, try it." And to have that as a creative partner, no matter how crazy, wacky the idea, it doesn't mean he's always going to like it. And we're really honest with each other about that, but he's always open for me trying whatever I want to try. And then if it doesn't work, I'll be like, "Yeah, that was a good shot," but no. Most of the time, it seems to work and I'm super grateful for that freedom from him.

We know next season was the last season. You've already done “Let’s Put The Christ Back in Christmas,” “Never Truly Vanish,” “Faster”... Are we going to see a full-on musical episode in the final season of The Boys?

I hope so. I have been whispering in the ears of writers and Eric and Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg and everybody for the last two or three years that a full-on Vought Broadway, Les Mis with Homelander or whatever, I think it'd be hilarious. We'll see if anything like that happens, whether it's in the show or outside the show. But I am volunteering loudly and proudly whenever they want me to start on it. Absolutely.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

New episodes of The Boys stream Thursdays on Prime Video.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.