Five years after its premiere, The Boys remains Prime Video’s superhero mega hit, with its fourth season breaking streaming viewing records. Viewer anticipation for the show’s colorfully chaotic cast is at an all-time high, and Antony Starr has become as associated with The Boys as Homelander is with milk. But, given Banshee, it came as no surprise that fan comments to Starr’s season 4 performance have remained positive.

However, Starr is no stranger to commanding the screen with morally nuanced characters, as evidenced by Banshee, which was released six years before The Boys. In this program, Starr was able to demonstrate his now-signature ability to portray characters who are both charming and criminal, setting the way for all of the factors that went into his outstanding portrayal of Homelander.

The Boys’ Antony Starr played the lead role in Banshee.

Themes of Identity Come Into Focus

In Banshee‘s three-year run from 2013 to 2016, prior to the actor joining The Boys cast, Starr took on the lead role of an ex-con who assumes the identity of a murdered sheriff named Lucas Hood to flee his pursuers. In doing so, he works to achieve a balance between Hood and his own criminal activities. It’s this struggle for identity where I see the seeds of Homelander being firmly planted six years after Hood’s introduction — in playing both dynamics of the law against one another in cop and criminal respectively.

I got a firsthand perspective of how invested Starr’s unnamed ex-con becomes in working as an officer of the law and how his understanding of justice plays out. This was made clear in Banshee‘s final season as Hood worked to take down the serial 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁er responsible for a slew of murders, including his friend Rebecca’s. While Starr works to catch the 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁er, his angle is one rooted in brutal revenge, which is where the portrayal of Hood blurs the ethical lines intended to separate cops and criminals.

Starr’s Lucus Hood Is The Perfect Anti-Hero

Shades of Gray Replace Good and Evil

Starr’s introduction as an unnamed ex-con in Banshee made it difficult for me to truly define Hood’s moral compass. While he had a reputation for being a thief, he was a loving father to his daughter Deva. His criminal past left him with little inhibitions when it came to breaking the law, but this helped Hood as a sheriff, as he wasn’t held back by a heroic code when working to achieve justice. It’s this flawed sense of justice that demonstrated Hood was able to go where others on his team wouldn’t — epitomizing thinking like a criminal to catch one.

“Antony Starr showcased that he knew how to toy with my traditional notions of good and evil.”

Antony Starr demonstrated his ability to play with my typical concepts of good and evil in Banshee, when he played a criminal disguised as a sheriff who gradually redeems his criminal past by leaning into it. Starr works hard to connect himself to audiences, demonstrating his capacity to be sympathetic and charming enough for me to stay fascinated with him despite his disrespect for heroic standards. Starr’s mastery of this is on full display as Homelander in The Boys, as he repels me from his character while keeping me clamoring for more of his distinct brand of anarchy.