The Gen V Star Who Originally Auditioned For The Boys' Homelander

Long before Patrick Schwarzenegger was wreaking havoc on season 3 of "The White Lotus," he was auditioning for the role of Homelander on "The Boys." Fans of that show know Homelander as the evil, all-powerful supe who carries disdain for most humans and a deep fondness for breast milk; Antony Starr kills it in that role, and it's hard to imagine anyone else doing it like he can.

Needless to say, Schwarzenegger (who's nearly 20 years younger that Starr) did not get the role as the 40-something Homelander, but the actor doesn't seem particularly upset about it. "It was nothing," he said in a recent podcast interview. "We audition for hundreds of things, and we get one percent, less than a percent of what we audition for." He noted that he didn't come into the audition with a full understanding of what the show was looking for with the character, and that in hindsight Starr getting the role was definitely for the best. As he put it:

"I'm so happy I did not get that, because he's so brilliant and I would not come even close to comparing to what he's done... I know he gets a lot of recognition but I don't think he gets enough recognition. It's brilliant. I feel like he should be getting Emmys for that. It's insane, his performance. It's so leveled, and it has so much depth to it."

The bright side of his failed Homelander audition is that it helped land Schwarzenegger the role of Golden Boy from "Gen V," a character who was initially framed as a younger Homelander-type character, but who was quickly fleshed out to be a lot more sympathetic. 

"When they were doing the 'Gen V' spin-off they came to me saying, 'We know you auditioned for that and we remember it, and we want you to audition for this Golden Boy,'" Schwarzenegger explained. "He was going to be this kind of a miniature version of Homelander but he was honestly like a really good kid and a really nice genuine person, and he was kind of struggling with having to become part of that superhero world and that kind of level of fame." 

Schwarzenegger recalled being told, "Oh and by the way we're going to kill you at the end of the first episode," which sure enough is exactly what happened. Still, he got to do a lot with the character in that first episode of the series; Golden Boy's death (and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it) was the inciting incident of the whole show, and his loss was felt strongly by pretty much all the other characters. 

Golden Boy's main appeal was that audiences totally expected an evil, Homelander-y reveal from the character — or at the very least, they expected the sort of sliminess we've got from Schwarzenegger in season 3 of "The White Lotus" so far — but he instead turned out to be one of the nicest guys on the show. Schwarzenegger's time in "The Boys" universe was brief, but it undeniably left a strong impression.