Why Homelander Actor Antony Starr Was Disappointed With The Boys Fans

Antony Starr was already known from his roles as Lucas Hood on the Cinemax crime show "Banshee" and Garrett Hawthorne on the CBS mystery drama "American Gothic" before he landed the part of twisted Superman expy Homelander on Amazon Prime Video's "The Boys." Still, for those who had missed his talents before, Starr's memorably twitchy turn as the sociopathic supe has certainly been enough to put him on the map.

Starr's Homelander has effectively transformed into a Donald Trump expy as the show has progressed, and "The Boys" makes absolutely no effort to hide this comparison as the dangerous character observes the world from New York City's Vought Tower while nurturing a cult of personality and harboring increasingly clear political aspirations. On the show, Homelander's power and undeniable charisma have managed to gaslight the public into thinking that he's the ultimate hero, and as Starr has found out to his chagrin, some fans have bought this angle as well. During an appearance on Entertainment Weekly's "Awardist" Drama Actors Roundtable, Starr expressed his surprise and shock to find out that a segment of viewers seems to genuinely idolize his patently unheroic character:

"We had a bunch of guys that we all kind of knocked them down a little but on social media to say, 'This guy is not the hero of any story.' They were really glorifying him, they loved him. Which is surreal. What I didn't expect was that people would be so conflicted around it and, you know, finding themselves finding empathy for this monster."

Starr's comments about fans who admire Homelander are far from the first time someone from the "Boys" camp has expressed their bafflement over the positive attention some viewers are giving the character, nor is this issue a new one. In fact, the people behind the series have been aware of the matter for a good while, and in an exclusive 2024 interview with /Film's Jacob Hall, "The Boys" showrunner Eric Kripke admitted that he's given up trying to understand Homelander fans:

"The show is many things. Subtle is not one of them. If you, for instance, think Homelander's a hero, I just don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you."

That being said, Kripke also noted that while he has difficulty understanding why someone would admire Homelander as a hero, he fully gets why fans admire him as a character. As the showrunner stated in the /Film interview, Starr's performance is nothing short of astounding, and the nuances of his work make the character work on a whole different level:

"He makes you understand the guy. He gives 17 facial expressions when someone else gives one. He's just an astounding actor, and he's doing Emmy worthy work. It's mind-blowing to me that he hasn't won anything yet. I think he makes that character so undeniable and is delivering just such a performance for the ages that I think people just naturally gravitate towards it."

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video, with season 5 slated to premiere in 2026.