Today it is difficult to imagine anyone else playing Homelander. Image: Amazon
The actor who played Homelander actually had no interest in the role. It’s hard to imagine today, as most of you probably associate actor Anthony Starr primarily with the iconic villain from The Boys. But he almost didn’t apply.
How he was cast for the role and why he initially had doubts about how the comic book would work as a series, he recently told in a YouTube-Interview mit Seth Meyers.
Starr explains how he got the role in the first place and why he had so little interest in it at first. He did not know the comic book and knew almost nothing about Homelander. The series version is completely different from the drawn original anyway.
In addition, Starr was actually busy with other shoots. His representatives annoyed him so much that he recorded an application tape during a lunch break:
But I finally did a video, almost out of spite because my reps kept pestering me about it. I went into my trailer on my lunch break, pulled out my iPad and just spit out an audition video. I sent it off and said, ‘Good, done, back to work.’ And then of course they loved it.
Only after he was actually offered the role did he catch up on the comics and was initially skeptical about how this template would work as a series. The Boys as a comic is even a lot more brutal and … unusual than the Amazon adaptation. Some scenes from it are definitely not suitable for filming.
2:36
The Boys: In the trailer for season 4, even chickens and sheep have superpowers… Wait, what?
Therefore, the series only roughly follows the original story; many plots and characters have been adapted.
Starr expressly welcomes the fact that The Boys will definitely end with season 5. He thinks the entire crew deserves it. You can read more about it at the following links, which also provide you with exciting information about season 4:
Actor Anthony Starr comes from New Zealand and has appeared in other series and films before The Boys, but none of his other roles have been nearly as well-known as Homelander. He plays the lead role in the crime series Banshee, for example. He also appeared twice in the fantasy series Xena in the 90s.
