The Boys Actors Anthony Starr And Erin Moriarty On Homelander And Starlight's Dynamic [Interview]

"The Boys" is back with a vengeance in season 3, bloodier, funnier, and more poignant than ever. The show is also scarier than ever before, which is saying something since it tackled actual nazis in season 2. Now Homelander, everyone's favorite psychopath supes, has become unchained after appealing to like-minded supremacists during an unscripted speech.

Meanwhile, with the titular boys falling into doing whatever it takes to fight supes, Starlight is left as the moral center of the show — even as she finds herself in more danger than ever as she starts working more closely with Homelander. Things are dire in the world of "The Boys," but the show still finds time to be hilariously goofy and gross.

During an interview with /Film, Anthony Starr and Erin Moriarty discussed Homelander and Starlight's new dynamic, the moral center of the show, and also tease the much anticipated "Herogasm" episode.

In episode 2 of the new season, during his televised birthday celebration, Homelander decides to show his real self to the world and rant about him being canceled and how there are shadow organizations pulling the strings of the world. This makes him more popular than ever with a certain demographic, and allows Homelander to shed his pretend Superman-like nice guy attitude. He is now unchained, not caring about those he is supposed to answer to, which Anthony Starr finds refreshing.

"[Homelander] has always answered to someone. He's always wanted to be the top of the heap, but he's always actually been a product that's been marketed and packaged for the world. And yeah, this season is the first time he's really stepping out on his own. The baby is leaving the nest, so to speak. And it's fun, because one of the great things about this show is we keep evolving these characters from episode to episode, season to season as people evolve in real life. So it keeps it fresh and it keeps it interesting and it keeps the idea tank deep [...] I feel very lucky to work on a show where the freshness is maintained like that."

As for Starlight, if just being on the Vought Tower with Homelander wasn't enough, she is now his co-captain of The Seven, and his on-camera girlfriend. To make matters worse, Hughie has fallen into despair as he discovered that Congresswoman Neuman has powers, and Butcher crossed a line and gave himself powers. But as Erin Moriarty assures us, her moral compass will not falter.

"In terms of her moral compass, the more anyone around her, the more their moral compasses sway, the more hers kind of stays intact because I feel like she needs to compensate. So for example, when she wants to save everyone — and this is a bit of a spoiler later on — during 'Herogasm' and Hughie doesn't want her to, she does everything she needs to do to get him out of her way so she can go save those people. And so it just goes to show that even Hughie isn't going to prevent her from keeping her moral compass intact. And if his sways, she's going to compensate."

With Queen Maeve practically out of the picture, Starlight and Homelander are working much more closely together this season, which Moriarty says greatly changes their dynamic moving forward.

"It was just really fun. I love when a scene is packed with tension," Moriarty continues. "And as we've been saying, you've kind of got the devil of the show and the angel of the show in a bunch of scenes together." ("I'm the angel," jokes Starr.) "Working side by side, putting on these masks with so much going on underneath the surface, it's just so fun and packed with tension and so many layers. And it's a dynamic I hope that we get to continue to explore."

Moriarty also gave us a bit of a tease on the hotly anticipated "Herogasm" episode, based on the six-issue comic book limited series of the same name, which sounds absolutely bonkers.

"It was five days in a row, 12 plus hours a day, well over 12 hours, of just being surrounded by nudity. And it was pretty wild. I'd never been in a room with so many dildos, so many sex toys, so much nudity, so much simultaneous sex going on in all different ways. I had to do one scene with one character where I'm talking to him and he's totally nude. So I'm trying to maintain eye contact with him because that was on the first day and I'm still getting used to working around so many naked people."

The actor was also amused by watching the director orchestrate all of the debauchery that takes place in the edges of the frame.

"But I think my favorite part was observing the director of that episode, Nelson Cragg, who was so awesome, directing the people in the background who are simulating sex. He all of a sudden became a porn director. And the things that he was saying to them to get what he wanted for them to simulate sex, I think that was one of my favorite parts of filming the episode, is just observing him and then him yelling, 'Cut,' and shaking his head like, 'What am I doing?' But it was amazing, hilarious, and scarring at the same time."

"The Boys" season 3 is streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes every Friday.