Homelander stands alone as one of the past decade's most despicable TV villains. If he's not dooming an entire aircraft's worth of passengers to a fiery death, he's torturing, maiming, and lasering anyone who dares stand in his way.
Still, thanks to a twisted 'rule of cool', a no-nonsense attitude, and Homelander's increased popularity via the medium of reaction GIFs, there is a small subset of The Boys viewers who feel obliged to root for the bad guy.
The actor behind Homelander, Antony Starr, is more than a little bemused by that response, however.
"We had a bunch of guys that we all kind of knocked them down a little [bit] on social media to say, 'This guy is not the hero of any story,'" Starr said during an Entertainment Weekly actors' roundtable.
Starr added, "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."
Filming on The Boys season 5 kicked off late last year, with Antony Starr himself teasing a typical shock-and-awe style approach to the Prime Video superhero series' final season.
"Every time I think I know what's gonna happen, something else happens, so this was no exception, these last scripts. I'm six deep, I haven't seen the penultimate and finale yet, but I know what happens and I think fans are gonna be either surprised or shocked, depending on their nervous system. But very, very entertained," Starr told Collider.
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