Need to run lines before tomorrow’s big scene? As Jack Quaid will tell you, there’s an app for that.
The star of The Boys explained his process to E! News’ Erin Lim at the 2025 SAG Awards, exclusively sharing that he records everyone else’s dialogue on his phone, leaving spaces where his character Hughie has lines, and then plays it back to rehearse. (See all the red carpet fashion at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards.)
“It’s basically what Leonardo DiCaprio does in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” the cinephile shared. “I literally do it all, then there’s just silence.”
Theoretically he could call upon his seasoned actor parents, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, for assistance, but does he ever do that?
“Oh, no,” Jack said, “they’re so busy.”
He sounded as if he was joking, but the 32-year-old has been conscientious about putting in the work himself in the wake of his inevitable inclusion in the ever-roiling Hollywood nepo baby conversation.
Not to mention, maybe a son wouldn’t want to run lines from the infamously graphic and profane super-anti-hero saga The Boys—a nominee at the Feb. 23 ceremony for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series—with his mom and dad.
And Jack doesn’t want to stop at Hughie, a “scary but fascinating” role to play, telling Erin that he prefers out-there characters.
“I just love eccentricity, really,” he said. “I just love anyone who’s a little bit off the beaten path. I love challenging myself if I can, you know, playing parts that I’d never thought in a million years I would play. Like, I think my thing is, if I see a role and there’s a potential of me playing the role, if it scares me I know I’m in the right place. So I think I want to do more things that freak me out.”
And while his parents weren’t initially “super psyched” to find out he wanted to follow in their footsteps as an actor (because it’s such a tough profession), as Jack told The Hollywood Reporter in December, they support him in his endeavors.
“But there’s definitely a need to prove myself,” he told The New York Times recently. “There is a little bit of something with identity and thinking, do I have any value outside of them? Not to say I’m complaining.”
Meg has defended her son from being painted with the broad brush of nepotism, telling Glamour in 2023, “Jack is really talented. He’s more of a natural than I’ll ever be. That nepo stuff is so dismissive of his work ethic, his gifts, and how sensitive he is to the idea of his privilege.”
After his mom went to bat for him, Jack told The Daily Beast, “My first thought was like, she’s being a mom. She’s being a loving mom.”
But she wasn’t trying to say he didn’t have any advantage. He added, “I think she’s just trying to say that, in her opinion, [the label] undermines my talent. I don’t think it undermines my talent. I know that I work hard, and I know I’ve heard ‘no’ way more than I’ve heard ‘yes.’”
And he got to the SAG Awards on his own as a presenter. He was “definitely feeling the butterflies,” he told Erin, having “never really presented an award before.” But he’s “just really excited to be here…It’s one of my favorite award shows.”
See all the stars who made the red carpet scene at the 2025 SAG Awards:
Ariana Grande
Timothee Chalamet
Selena Gomez
Cynthia Erivo
Leighton Meester
Adam Brody
Zoe Saldaña
Keke Palmer
Kieran Culkin
Millie Bobby Brown
Demi Moore
Colman Domingo
Kristen Bell
Jeremy Allen White
Mikey Madison
Kerry Washington
Jeremy Strong
Jamie Lee Curtis
Michelle Yeoh
Daniel Craig
Pamela Anderson
Jane Fonda
Ralph Fiennes
Quinta Brunson
Anna Sawai
Elle Fanning
Colin Farrell
Nicola Coughlan
Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Lily Gladstone
