Sympathy for Homelander? Antony Starr shuts it down: "Hope you don’t have kids"
If you think Homelander can be redeemed, Antony Starr isn’t having it, answering fans defending The Boys’ villain with a response that leaves no wiggle room.
At a Sony Pictures Television FYC panel in Los Angeles in mid-October, about five months after the finale, Antony Starr shut down the recurring fan question he’s been getting: can Homelander be redeemed? The exchange, captured from the audience and posted online, shows Starr recoiling before giving a blunt answer.
“F****** h*** man... Eeeck,” he says to people who argue Homelander is redeemable. “Hope you don’t have kids…don’t breed.”
The moment was filmed by the account @dawnyb, which shared four clips from the panel on October 15. The event gathered the show’s creative team and cast for awards-season Q&A.
- Eric Kripke — creator
- Jack Quaid — cast
- Chace Crawford — cast
- Phil Sgriccia — director
Starr has been consistent on this point for years, once comparing a Homelander redemption arc to “the shark from Jaws going vegan.” He’s said he wants viewers to grasp the character’s trauma and isolation — without ever rooting for him.
Season 5 by the numbers
Prime Video says Season 5 of The Boys was its most-watched season yet, averaging 57 million viewers per episode worldwide in its first 39 days. Across the same window, the full series reached about 69 million viewers, according to the streamer.
In the U.S., Nielsen measured roughly 968 million minutes per episode, which was about 19% below Season 4. Finale week still hit a season high of 1.07 billion minutes, indicating plenty of people kept watching — and debating — to the end.
Critics stayed largely positive, with Rotten Tomatoes scores in the low-to-mid-90s, but audience sentiment slid. The finale, “B**** and Bone,” now sits at 5.6 on IMDb from roughly 133,000 ratings, the lowest of the series and down from about 6.7 in May. Common viewer complaints focused on rushed pacing and a few minutes of Gen V crossover screen time.
Homelander, however, remained a villain through the final episode — exactly the endpoint Starr has long advocated. The clips from the panel were posted on October 15.