'This Guy Is Not the Hero of Any Story' — Homelander Actor Antony Starr Says It's 'Surreal' That The Boys Fans Were Glorifying the Supervillain

Homelander histrion Antony Starr has spoken of his astonishment astatine the glorification of the supervillain quality by immoderate The Boys fans, calling it “surreal.”

The Boys began successful 2019 and was an instant smash deed for Prime Video, with its ace gory enactment and acheronian wit delivering a standout satire of the superhero movies and TV shows of our time. It’s based connected the comic publication of the aforesaid sanction by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and follows the eponymous squad of vigilantes who enactment to bring down a radical of supervillains led by an anti-Superman quality called Homelander.

Homelander is simply a demented despot who rules The Seven with an robust fist. The different supes connected the squad unrecorded successful fearfulness of Homelander, whose overpowered abilities springiness him carte blanche to bash immoderate helium wants, whenever helium wants — and no-one is brave capable to basal up to him.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Starr said helium had to sound down fans glorifying Homelander connected societal media.

"We had a clump of guys that we each benignant of knocked them down a small but connected societal media to say, 'This feline is not the leader of immoderate story.' " Starr said. "They were truly glorifying him, they loved him. Which is surreal."

Starr added that helium was amazed to find immoderate The Boys fans siding with Homelander, fixed the outrageously evil actions helium takes successful the show.

"What I didn't expect was that radical would beryllium truthful conflicted astir it and, you know, uncovering themselves uncovering empathy for this monster."

Starr’s comments echo those The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke issued past twelvemonth up of The Boys' Season 4 premiere. Kripke responded to fans saying Homelander is simply a leader and disapproval astir the amusement going “woke” successful its latest seasons successful 1 fell swoop.

“Anyone who wants to telephone the amusement 'woke' oregon whatever, that’s OK. Go ticker thing else. But I’m surely not going to propulsion immoderate punches oregon apologize for what we’re doing," Kripke said.

"Some radical who ticker it deliberation Homelander is the hero. What bash you accidental to that? The show’s galore things. Subtle isn’t 1 of them. So if that’s the connection you’re getting from it, I conscionable propulsion up my hands.”

When asked whether the showrunners ever intended to parallel U.S. President Donald Trump’s statesmanlike contention via Homelander’s authoritarian emergence to power, Kripe responded that Homelander was designed beryllium an authoritarian proxy for Trump.

“When Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and I took it retired to pitch, it was 2016. We conscionable wanted to bash a precise realistic mentation of a superhero show, 1 wherever superheroes are celebrities behaving badly. Trump was the, ‘He’s not truly getting the nomination, is he?’ guy. When helium got elected, we had a metaphor that said much astir the existent world,” Kripke explained.

“Suddenly, we were telling a communicative astir the intersection of personage and authoritarianism and however societal media and amusement are utilized to merchantability fascism. We’re close successful the oculus of the storm. And erstwhile we realized that, I conscionable felt an work to tally successful that absorption arsenic acold arsenic we could.”

The Boys TV bid ends with Season 5, which is presently successful production.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].