Karl Urban has quite the nerdy acting resume. From his current leading role as Billy Butcher in The Boys to Dr. Leonard McCoy in Star Trek, we love to see him in some of our favorite fictional universes. Up next is his role in Mortal Kombat II as a washed up Johnny Cage who used to be an action hero and is eyeing a comeback. It is the kind of role that certainly requires a lot of physicality, which is something Urban is used to from The Boys. As a matter of fact, Karl Urban revealed that his more chill role in The Boys season four led him towards Mortal Kombat II.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Urban said he was itching for some action after the latest season of The Boys. In it, Butcher dealt with his grim health diagnosis and didn’t really get a chance to get super physical as much as he did in previous seasons. “It was my General Hospital season,” Urban told the website. “I didn’t really have much action that season…. I had fuel in the tank. I just wasn’t satiated.”
Urban called his agent to see if there were action roles that would fit him. And, of course, he got the Mortal Kombat II script about a week later. It was everything that he was looking for. “It was the most challenging role that I’ve ever undertaken in my career,” Urban said. “It’s the martial arts. The form and the style of martial arts is so specific, and the choreography, at times, is so definitive in its movement, and there’s a precision of execution for it to look good. It was a huge challenge.”
So, we can thank Butcher’s diagnosis in The Boys season four for Karl Urban’s role as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat II. The fifth and final season of The Boys will release on April 8, 2026, and Mortal Kombat II will hit theaters on May 8, 2026.