'The Boys' Cast Reveals Which Movies Homelander & Butcher Love | Sorry Not Sorry
When an actor plays a role for years, they become connected to their character. Along with remembering dialogue, they begin to understand how their character thinks, what they'd feel, and even what they'd watch on a random Tuesday night. So it makes sense that The Boys actors Karl Urban and Antony Starr didn't miss a beat when asked to pick the movies their characters would love.
WATCH: The Boys Cast Reveals Which Movies Homelander and Butcher Would LOVE!
"Spice World for sure," Urban told JustWatch while promoting The Boys Season 5. "100% Spice World because Butcher loves the Spice Girls," he said, confirming his character, Billy Butcher's love for the '90s pop group. His pick might sound a little odd. But it won't come as a surprise to fans who have watched every episode of the 2019 superhero series.
Starr picked the 1976 neo-noir psychological drama Taxi Driver for his character. "I think Homelander is the perpetual victim," the actor said, explaining the reasoning behind his choice. "He thinks he's, you know, the most hard done by man in the world, and so did Travis Bickle," he added, comparing his self-righteous, reckless character to the one played by Robert De Niro.
'Spice World' Weirdly Makes Perfect Sense For Butcher
Spice World and Butcher might seem like they don't belong in the same sentence. But in Season 1, Episode 4, of the Prime Video series, the character channeled his deep knowledge of the Spice Girls while attempting to stop Serge/Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Marvin T/M.M. (Laz Alonso) from continuing a really, really intense argument.
"What's Sporty Spice up to?" Butcher said, eliciting confused responses from both men. "How about Posh? You know what she's doing? And [Baby Spice]? You know what she's doing? F**K all. And Scary Spice [is] up to her eyeballs in lawsuits. Ginger, on the other hand, has released three albums. They'll all make your ears bleed."
Then Butcher went on to make his point. "You see, when they're apart, they're absolute rubbish. But you put them together, they're the goddamn Spice Girls. We need each other," he explained. "We need each other, or we're dead in the water." While the Spice Girls might be an unexpected analogy choice for a former Special Air Service operative, it was very effective.
'Taxi Driver' Is An Obvious Choice For Homelander
If Urban's pick for Butcher initially felt like a mismatch, Starr's choice for John Gillman/Homelander is the complete opposite, since it has an eerie accuracy to it. Taxi Driver follows Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle, who works as a taxi driver in New York City. But due to his poor mental state, Travis becomes increasingly paranoid and starts to make some very questionable decisions.
Despite his shortcomings and violent tendencies, Travis is eventually hailed as a hero by New Yorkers. This is something he shares with the leader of The Seven. Although Homelander is narcissistic, murderous, sadistic, and predatory, people still think of him as a noble hero. Like Travis, he thinks the world is the problem. And he's just reacting to it.
That's where the "hard done by" comparison really becomes apparent. Homelander and Travis have the same internal framing. Everything that goes wrong becomes proof that they have been wronged. Both characters believe they're owed something like respect and admiration. When they don't get it, their individual responses are pretty dark.
Why To Watch 'Spice World' And 'Taxi Driver' (And What To Watch After)
Spice World is a musical comedy in which the Spice Girls (Mel B, Emma, Mel C, Geri, and Victoria) play fictionalized versions of themselves as they make their way to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Along the way, they have to hide from paparazzi and work to stop an evil newspaper owner from trying to sabotage their career.
Spice World is easier to enjoy once you stop trying to pin it down as a good or bad movie in the traditional sense. It's not really aiming for that. It's more about watching the girl group do silly stuff. If that works for you, 1995's Clueless taps into a similar sense of style-driven storytelling, just with a much stronger script.
Robert De Niro fans will love Taxi Driver since he carries the entire film by himself. It's dark and extremely unsettling in places. But the movie's subtle message about morality leaves you with something to think about. If that's your vibe, Joker (2019) explores a similar kind of internal unraveling, just framed in a more modern way.
