The Boys: Chris Evans Homelander Deepfake Has Internet Conflicted

This article contains spoilers for The Boys Season 2, Snowpiercer and Knives Out.

A new deepfake that shows us what Chris Evans would look like as Homelander over on Amazon’s smash hit series The Boys has prompted a discussion online about whether the Captain America star would be able to nail the villainous role or not.

Evans, who played Steve Rogers across three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has certainly been no stranger to playing against type in the past. Last year, we saw him as the murderous Ransom Drysdale in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, and he was almost unrecognisable as a mob hitman in 2012’s underrated crime drama, The Iceman, opposite Michael Shannon. And, hey, let’s take a beat to remember the man was a literal baby-eater in Snowpiercer, but when it comes to The Boys’ ultraviolent Homelander, the internet isn’t quite sure if Evans could pull it off.

You can see the new deepfake, created for “shits n giggles” by Redditor d4danger, below…

Deepfaked Chris Evans onto Homelander from r/TheBoys

An impressive edit for sure, but responding on Reddit, people were conflicted over whether Evans could realistically fill Starr’s shoes as the vicious Homelander. Kiwi actor Antony Starr has played the role to perfection on the brutal comic book adaptation so far, with fans saying his performance should receive some serious awards recognition, and it’s quite hard to imagine anyone else playing the leader of The Seven at this point.

“The thing about Anthony is that he has strong features so he looks straight up evil 100% of the time, its hard to believe him as a good guy. On the other hand, Chris is too baby faced for Homelander,” one user noted, adding that Starr’s performance was up there with Jack Nicholson’s in The Shining.

“Chris Evans would do a good job no doubt but Antony Starr absolutely owns the role and is the standout performance in the show,” wrote another.

Elsewhere, some were pretty convinced by the delicious irony of Evans as Homelander. “Tony Starr has given us everything we didn’t know we wanted in Homelander but seeing America’s treasured soldier turned into a nega-Superman wackjob would’ve been absolutely ingenious and priceless.”

There was more irony to be found in the deepfake itself, however, after people made the connection to Stormfront’s denial of her Nazi connections in The Boys’ Season 2 finale. The racist supe at one point even claimed old images of her alongside her husband, Compound V geneticist Frederick Vought, were deepfakes.

“This is equal parts scary and amazing,” read one comment. “Scary in that some dude on Reddit just made a seamless and realistic actor swap. Now just imagine how Stormfront would use this to her own evil purposes.”

The show’s own take on Captain America – minus Chris Evans -will get underway in Season 3, with the introduction of Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy. You can read more about the direction that showrunner Eric Kripke and his team of writers are taking the character right here, but it’s safe to say we’re not done looking at Vought International’s murky past, nor its ties to the Nazis in WWII. Aya Cash’s Stormfront was just a small piece of that puzzle, and Soldier Boy’s story will help the series examine more of America’s turbulent history.

The Boys stars Jack Quaid as Hughie, Tomer Capon as Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko, Karl Urban as Butcher, Erin Moriarty as Starlight, Antony Starr as Homelander, Laz Alonso as Mother’s Milk, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, Chace Crawford as The Deep, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir and Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar.

Amazon renewed The Boys for a third season before the second even arrived, and is also moving forwards with a spinoff show.