No one should be as good as Antony Starr is at being Homelander
One of the hardest things to understand from the outside of any group operating under a cult of personality is just how intoxicating a personality can be. A charismatic presence, given a regular amount of your time — say, every Sunday morning, or even better, every evening after dinner — can be terribly seductive. Television, in its focus on building a relationship with the viewer over time, can use this as a powerful tool in making its point. Sometimes, with the right actor breathing life into the material, it can be a little too good at making its point. Consider, for example: Antony Starr’s singular performance on The Boys as the super-fascist Homelander.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider how difficult a task any actor would have had being Homelander. Considering the source material — which I would strongly recommend you do not, as it has not aged terribly well in multiple ways — Homelander doesn’t quite seem like a character that could be played by a living human being. He’s basically a caricature, having more in common with political cartoons than the comparatively grounded aesthetic of comics superheroes contemporary to him. There is no humanity in the character as envisioned by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson; he’s a means to an (often prurient) end.
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Antony Starr, however, seemed to innately understand the character from the moment he appeared on screen, and how to add dimension to what lay crudely on the comic book page. He knew how to project a smile so radiant you only notice Homelander’s dead eyes behind it if you’re looking for them. He knows how to carry himself with a tension stemming from deep insecurity, or how to purse his lips in a way that underlines how it is more annoying for him to issue a threat than it is to merely repeat himself and let the threat remain implied. If he played a wind instrument, he’d have excellent embouchure.
The Boys doesn’t work without Antony Starr. The New Zealand actor, who had previously
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