Antony Starr on How His Personal Fears and Emotions Influence Homelander: “It was a sign of how in sync Eric and I have been with this character”

“The Boys” is one of the world’s most popular superhero series, and its fourth season recently wrapped up with an explosive finale. Initially met with mixed reviews, the show gained traction and earned a Certified Fresh rating along with a significant audience, as confirmed by Amazon and Nielsen. Despite this, the season’s increasing political themes prompted review-bombing from some unhappy fans, but the showrunners remained indifferent.

The season concluded on July 18, 2024, with the final episode titled “Season Four Finale” (formerly “Assassination Run”). This episode set the stage for a dark future centered on Homelander, which is why this report will focus on his character.

Antony Starr has consistently delivered an outstanding performance as Homelander, making it fascinating to explore his approach to the role and the parallels between him and his character. In a recent interview with Vulture magazine, Starr shared some intriguing insights about these aspects. You can read about them below.

Antony Starr spoke with Vulture magazine about how his own personal fears and emotions are reflected in Homelander, as well as how his sentiments are or aren’t conveyed through the character in various scenes. This discussion offers fascinating insights into both the character and Starr’s approach to the role. Here is what he shared:

Eric said about the fourth season, “We write what we’re either scared of or pissed off about.” Did any scenes this season tap into those feelings for you?

Not so much “pissed off.” But I’m 48. You start taking stock of where you’ve been, where you’re at, where you want to go. All these questions come up about mortality. I wondered if there was a way of getting that in the material. And then I checked myself; it’s not my place to do that.

Cut to: I open the first page of the new script, and there’s Homelander scouring his nether regions for silver hairs. That led to themes of legacy, mortality, fatherhood. All of that stuff is coming up for Antony Starr, and then it happened to come up in the material. It was a sign of how in sync Eric and I have been with this character.

Homelander’s smile is such a motif. He has a fake smile for selfies and people filming him in public. He has a maniacal laugh when he’s in the Vought lab, torturing the people who ran tests on him as a child. How do you craft the different versions of that smile?

Ninety percent of it is spontaneous. Eric and I go back and forth quite a bit on my scenes. There’s a lot of freedom to play, which means I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do. It’s funny you mentioned that scene in episode four. Homelander makes Marty self-pleasure in front of a group of people. I had it in my head that I just wanted to go in and laugh maniacally at him.

But those scenes are really hard to do, when you’ve got to really drive into a laugh. It’s almost a physical thing that takes over; you’ve got to try to push past that and somehow make it real laughter. We blocked it, and then we did a rehearsal showing the crew before we set up, and I pushed that out a little bit just to see what would happen. There was just crickets. Pure silence.

I was like, Oh no, is this not gonna work? But I like being in a position where there is that risk of failure. It’s very uncomfortable, but it’s a good place to be when you’re working. So I asked director Phil Sgriccia, “Let me just go for it. We’ll see what happens.” Once we got into it, a lot of emotion, really bitter resentment and teary sadness, came up as well. It’s very confusing for the character, and I think a lot of that ended up in the final cut.

Source: Vulture

That wraps up our report, but stay tuned for more intriguing behind-the-scenes insights. Keep following us for the latest updates!

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