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\n\u2018The Boys\u2019 showrunner Eric Kripke has made it clear he sees the show\u2019s villain, Homelander, as a Donald Trump analogue. In our new interview, actor Antony Starr tells us why he doesn\u2019t love that idea, and much, much more https:\/\/t.co\/bR7aIMYPgM<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/bR7aIMYPgM<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) June 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
On Homelander being an analogue for Trump, \u201cFor me it\u2019s a bit of a red herring because if we strictly stayed in that lane, the character would be one- or two-dimensional, and we wanted to create something a bit more layered than that. We wanted more than a cardboard cutout. It\u2019s the same way that you could look at it like Superman and just go bad. I don\u2019t want to do that. I want to start from the ground up and build a human being that was, OK, how was he raised? He was raised in a lab. What damage did that do? \u2026But let me put it this way. Whatever parallels there are to the real world, it has to be driven by our characters. The narrative has to be driven by the needs of the character, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
On Homelander\u2019s milk fetish, \u201cSo my memory is it came up in the scripts \u2014 full credit to the writing team on this, because it was so weird. It started with X-ray visioning my Oedipal mummy figure while she was breastfeeding, and me pining like that and having a jealous relationship with the baby. And then at the start of Season Two, I found some of her \u2026 Homelander<\/i> found some of her breast milk in a freezer and lasers it, starts drinking it, gets caught. And it was so funny and weird, and I think I sent Eric an email after that scene going, \u2018Dude, we gotta get as much milk in this show as possible. This is gonna be like a little motif or a signature thing. Like, we have to do it.\u2019 And he was like, \u2018One step ahead of you, brother. I\u2019m putting it in everything.\u2019 And so now every opportunity we get, the milk thing comes out. We don\u2019t have to do anything with it, either. If I just look at someone and sip milk, there\u2019s a twist to it. It\u2019s become a really fun thing. The fans have really glommed on to it. And enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Homelander\u2019s emotional state, \u201cWhen people start getting traumatized or whenever they start using drugs to escape, they emotionally shut off at that age. And so we\u2019re looking at a guy who\u2019s physically the strongest man in the world, who I\u2019ve always looked at as the weakest character in the show because emotionally, psychologically, he\u2019s just completely deficient. He\u2019s like a 12-year-old. And in some ways, less than. And I, that, we do, we look at that with a little more depth in Season Four. And I think that makes the character a little more empathetic, because he\u2019s mentally ill. The guy\u2019s damaged, he\u2019s been through a hell of a lot, and I think the reality of that, trying to honor his way of dealing with it, and how that plays out in him, is very important. We\u2019re in a heightened, very extreme universe, but it all ties back to something that I actually do personally care about and I wanted to try and honor as much as possible. And that is the damage and the mental health issues that come up from the kind of treatment that he\u2019s had. And we all struggle. We all struggle \u2026 I\u2019m interested in how we function, what damage does to us. And I think that\u2019s probably why people strangely empathize with the character. Some people got it completely wrong at one point and were championing him like he was the hero and that was a bad thing. That was wrong\u2026 He should not be anyone\u2019s real hero, but I do get a lot of people saying that they have very conflicted feelings about him because he does all this horrible stuff, yet he\u2019s desperately trying to be a good father. He genuinely loves the kid. He just doesn\u2019t know how. Because how would he? He\u2019s never been loved.\u201d<\/p>\n