Antony Starr’s ‘Bond, James Bond’ Audition Disaster: Homelander Himself Says It’s the Worst 007 Reading You’ll Ever See
Antony Starr has become one of the most talked-about performers on television, his portrayal of the unhinged, laser-eyed Homelander in ‘The Boys‘ cementing him as a genuine force in the industry. Since day one, Starr’s take on TV’s most petulant villain has been a major highlight of the Prime Video series, bringing endless tension to the show with a character who could effortlessly snap the neck of anyone around him at any given moment. It is a long, strange road from that status to the story that has now resurfaced in a big way, one that takes Starr back to a far more uncertain chapter of his career.
Back in 2005, the actor best known today for his terrifying portrayal of Homelander was trying out for the role of 007, screen-testing alongside other hopefuls such as Henry Cavill, Rupert Friend, and Sam Worthington, as the Bond producers prepared for what would become ‘Casino Royale.’ The nearly five-minute clip was later posted on YouTube by a user named Ron South, who says he found the tape in the recycling bin of a movie studio, along with another audition reel for Henry Cavill.
After the tape made its rounds on social media, Starr sat down with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to address the footage head-on, and his reaction was about as self-aware as it gets. He described his overall odds during those auditions as being like throwing a baitless hook into a very large pond, knowing he was not going to catch the fish. As for the tape itself, his words, featured in the screenshot shared by @TheBoysOOCC, were even more direct: “it is one of the worst readings of ‘Bond James Bond’ you’ll ever see… it’s a lot. It’s a drag. I think my window for doing that, it’s a young man’s game.”
Starr also acknowledged that the tape was reflective of where he was at the time, and that if some miracle had placed him in the role, he simply would not have been ready for it. There is a rich irony in all of this, of course. The man who once fumbled a spy franchise audition has spent years playing someone far more terrifying than any Bond villain, a character so thoroughly embedded in pop culture that critics have begun placing Starr’s Homelander alongside Heath Ledger’s Joker and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in the comic-book performance pantheon.
When asked whether he would consider throwing his hat into the Bond ring again, Starr used his experience on the action-heavy ‘Banshee’ series as his reference point, noting that he now knows what those fight scenes truly demand. The answer was effectively a gracious but firm no. The Bond chapter, it seems, is well and truly closed in his mind, and given what Homelander has become, most fans would not have it any other way.
Starr’s final turn as Homelander aired on Prime Video this year, with the fifth and concluding season of ‘The Boys’ kicking off with a special two-episode premiere on April 8. The series ultimately brought the curtain down on Homelander in its finale, closing out one of the most talked-about villain arcs in recent television history. Knowing that Starr once fumbled a “Bond, James Bond” reading in a small room twenty years ago, only to end up delivering one of the defining screen performances of his generation, makes the whole saga feel almost too perfectly cinematic, so what do you think: does a young Antony Starr as 007 sound like a near-miss the franchise dodged, or a version of Bond history you secretly wish had happened?
