Antony Starr wonders if Homelander is capable of self-awareness

In a grim world where everybody’s out to get you, even a superhero as powerful and seemingly invincible as Homelander has to constantly watch his own back. That statement has taken on a whole new level of meaning during the most recent third season of The Boys, leaving the villain as unhinged as he’s ever been, which is literally a single bad day away from leveling the entire planet.

Homelander isn’t just a terrifying and malicious force of nature, though. In fact, we could argue that there’s nothing one-dimensional about his character, even despite the fact that he always embodies a sense of abject evil that nips any hopes for a redemption arc in the bud. According to Antony Starr himself, Homelander is mentally a teenage boy still going through puberty and trying to “break free of the parent figures.” As he explained it in a recent interview with Collider:

“Do I think he’s self-reflective? I don’t think Homelander is the most spiritually aware chap. I think the guy is going through what most people would go through at puberty, which is this self-identification process, breaking free of the parent figures. But one thing that was actually really fun to play was to look at what Homelander created in himself and the tools he created and used to get himself through hard times.”

The way Homelander copes is apparently through talking to a tougher, more sinister version of himself in the mirror, a revelation that also came courtesy of season three. For Starr, that element developed almost naturally.

“‘That was a lot of fun. Reflectively, there is one scene that’s a directly reflective experience, when we see this character that he has created, as a boy, in the mirror that he has a conversation with,’ he continued. ‘That was a lot of fun, to mess around with the internal mechanics of this guy. What made him the way that he is and how did he cope with it? It just adds a lot of context to the character, and in doing that, it deepens the experience for the audience. It’s always fun, finding new territory with this character, and in this case, seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes. I don’t think we’ve hit the bottom yet either. There are layers to mind.’”

Speaking of parent figures, the leader of the Seven will probably be going through his darkest hour yet during this Friday’s season finale. And something tells us that not even a mirror is going to save Homelander from himself when he confronts Soldier Boy again.