Antony Starr, who plays supe tyrant Homelander on the Amazon Prime hit,The Boys, gave his thoughts on the intense, contemptuous rivalry between Homelander and the leader of the boys, Billy Butcher, while talking with Butcher’s actor, Karl Urban.
The rivalry between Homelander and Billy ButcherremainsThe Boys' most compelling plotline, seeing how Homelander raped Butcher’s wife, leading to the conception of their son, Ryan. Following that, Butcher has been doing everything he can to get back at Vought’s number one supe by finding ways to kill him any way he can. Starr talked about what it’s like for the two of them to share the screen.
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During a conversation with Urban for Prime Video, Starr talked about what it was like when he and Urban first shared a scene in the last moments ofThe Boysseason 1 while talking with Urban. “I remember the first scene that you and me did. When you had strapped Stillwell down to blow up…it was so fun because you were so stoic and staunch and f***ing on-point with what you want to do,” Starr said. “And the unraveling, lasering Stillwell, and the look on your face when you’re like, ‘Well, that was unexpected.’ It just makes it so much fun. The dynamic of those two characters is really fun to play.”
Even thoughThe Boysblatantly demonstrateshow much Homelander and Butcher hate each other, Homelander and Butcher don’t share that many scenes in the same setting. Outside of season 1’s finale, where they only share 10 minutes give or take, the only times the two are in the same scene are in the penultimate episode of season 1 (in a flashback), then the third and eighth episodes of season 2. Then they meet three times in season 3, where they meet in episodes 1, 6, and 8. With Butcher having a terminal diagnosis, the clock is ticking on getting revenge on Homelander, so there may be more scenes with the two of them ahead.
That’s something thatThe Boysfans should be looking forward to because there may not be a more fascinating dynamic on the show than the one between Homelander and Butcher. If he wanted, the psychopathic supe could kill Butcher without breaking a sweat, but he won’t because Butcher isn’t afraid of him, which is rare for Homelander to see from a regular person.Homelander craves genuine relationshipssince most people are either scared of him or worship him. Even if Butcher hates him to the point where he’d gladly kill him the first chance he got, Homelander likes that, for once, there’s no facade with a non-supe.
Afterall that happened inThe Boysseason 3, Homelander knows that Butcher is not messing around trying to kill his mortal enemy and nearly succeeded multiple times. Another reason he was comfortably leaving Butcher alive was that he didn’t think Butcher really could get his revenge, and now his rival is closer than ever. Now that he knows Butcher can kill him, Homelander may think it’s in his best interest to kill his rival before he gets the last laugh.
