OkThe Boys is currently airing its fifth and final season on Prime Video, and with it comes a wave of interviews from the people who made the show what it is. One of the most heartfelt and interesting things to come out of all this press has been Antony Starr talking about his relationship with show creator and showrunner Eric Kripke, and specifically how much creative freedom Kripke has given him over five seasons of playing Homelander.
The quote that has been going around on social media, sums it up perfectly. Starr said,
“It’s Eric’s car and I get to drive it around. I can take it down different roads. He’s really let me drive it wherever I wanted while he makes sure my GPS works.”
That is a pretty remarkable thing to say about a working relationship in television, where actors are often given very little room to deviate from what is written on the page. The relationship between Kripke and Starr demonstrates how much trust Kripke has in Starr to portray the character.
Kripke has allowed Starr to take the Homelander character in the direction that the actor has best seen fit, while Kripke stays mostly behind the scenes, making sure to keep the overall story of The Boys continuing as originally planned. This fact alone speaks volumes about what has made the Homelander character one of the most discussed villains of all television history.
Homelander has been well-written as a complex character. The Homelander character was moulded through the interaction between the deep understanding by the actor playing the Homelander character and the showrunner during every single scene.
The Boys Season 5 was released with two episodes coming out on April 8, 2026, on Prime Video, with an additional episode coming out once a week until the season finale on May 20, 2026. It is already receiving some of the best reviews the show has ever gotten.
What the working relationship between The Boys actors Starr and Kripke has actually looked like?
Kripke actually stated, in another interview with Gold Derby, that his and Starr’s relationship is one of the most integral parts of their process of creating The Boys. Once Starr gets his script, he and Kripke will sit down together and go over what Starr will do with Homelander in the script. This is not just a notes and suggestions session, but a true discussion of what Starr thinks Homelander is feeling at that point in the story.
According to Kripke, Starr will often say something like “I see what you’re trying to do for Homelander here in the writing. But, could I play it like this?” or flag a specific line that feels slightly off for the character, and then they will work through it together until they find the right approach. Kripke described Starr as “hyper aware” of where Homelander is at all times, and said that awareness makes his job as showrunner significantly easier.
Kripke has also been very open in interviews about the fact that he considers it almost criminal that Starr has not received more formal recognition from awards bodies for the work he has done on The Boys. In his Gold Derby interview, he said,
“To me, it’s criminal that Antony Starr has not gotten recognition for the job he’s doing as Homelander.”
He added that the entire cast is doing career-best work in The Boys season 5, but singled out Starr in a way that made clear how much he values what the actor has brought to the show over all five seasons.
Why Starr’s gratitude toward Kripke runs so deep and what does it mean for the The Boys legacy?
When they finished filming The Boys Season 5 during the summer of 2025, Starr put out a lengthy and very emotional tribute to The Boys on Instagram, basically detailing how much the show had meant to him. In the same post, he also thanked Kripke directly and said he was his Homelander character co-parent.
He wrote, “We created a monster sir.” He also said that “And I will miss him, and you.” He went on to describe Homelander as a character that “allowed the space and range to discover and push boundaries in a way I never expected,” and noted that the entire process was the best thing he had experienced in his career.
Co-parent, co-creator of the character refers to something even more than the ordinary bond between an actor and a showrunner. Clearly, Starr has a sense of ownership of Homelander and that Kripke was the one who made that ownership possible, which is why the performance was consistently good across all five seasons, with a lot of depth to it too.
The Homelander that you will see in season five is not going to be the same Homelander you saw in season one. He has grown and developed throughout his time well, and this growth and development really does seem authentic because it has been made by two people who truly love creating together.
The Boys is in its final season until May 20, 2026 and is being aired on Prime Video weekly.
Edited by Sohini Biswas