Erin Moriarty Won’t Back Down

Over eight years, The Boys star Erin Moriarty has grown up alongside her character, Annie January. When she was first cast as the once-idealistic superhero, known professionally as Starlight, Moriarty was just twenty-three years old. Now, with the release of the fifth and allegedly final season, Moriarty is thirty-one and is reflecting on the frightening health crisis that fundamentally reshaped her relationship to both the character and herself. “My time with her has been amazing,” says Moriarty. “There’s been this parallel growing up together. It’s been such a gift.”

Amazon’s hit show takes place in a world inhabited by selfish, corrupt superheroes whose careers resemble those of venal celebrities more than those of national icons. From the beginning, Annie has been a beacon of morality in this grim setting, initially introducing the audience to the environment as the newest recruit to the powerful superhero organization while trying to maintain her integrity. “My showrunner and I have always been very intent on making sure that Annie is human first, superhero second,” says Moriarty.

Over the course of five seasons, however, Annie has had her sense of morality tested as the systems around her become increasingly violent and disturbing. “The reason she questions her own morality is a testament to its strength,” says Moriarty. “I want to yell at Annie and say, ‘Listen, girl, you’re operating within a world that is highly corrupt in a way that you could never have fathomed, and the fact that you’re still to this day trying to do the right thing, and even just questioning whether you’re trying to do the right thing, means that you are a good person.’ I think that’s what she’s constantly wondering: Is she a good person? Is she making the world a better place? She’s not giving herself the grace that she needs as a result of needing to adapt to the reality of the world that she is in. And the world that she is in is so much more corrupt and dark and drunk on power than anything she ever could have fathomed.”

One of the most personally significant storylines for Moriarty arrives in the show’s final season, when Annie reunites with her estranged father (Tim Daly). Moriarty tears up as she recounts spending years “begging” showrunner Eric Kripke to have their characters meet, citing its importance to Annie’s emotional arc. But by the time the storyline finally came to be, Moriarty’s health was in steep decline. “Around the time that I shot the episode with my father, I started to get really sick, and we didn’t know what it was,” she recalls.

The symptoms were so severe that she could barely walk, was sleeping for nineteen hours a day, and struggled to speak. While she waited for answers from her doctor, a neurologist remained on call because some symptoms resembled those of a stroke. All the while, she continued filming. “There was this weird dichotomy,” Moriarty says. “All my dreams were coming true. But simultaneously, my health was plummeting, and it was a very scary moment in time because we didn’t know what it was, and we didn’t know if it was going to be really serious.”

Eventually, Moriarty was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that can affect metabolism, energy levels, and body weight. “This character’s moment with her father was the most important moment for me,” she says. “I just wish I could have shown up for her in a more whole state. But that’s the reality behind autoimmune disease. And that’s the reality that isn’t out there enough.”

Having worked as an actress since she was eleven, Moriarty understood the risk of becoming defined by illness in an image-conscious industry. But her experience overrode all of that, and last June she decided to share her diagnosis. “I just remember once I got diagnosed, thinking I can’t be the only one who has gone through this. It is such an isolating, scary, life-changing experience. It’s so hard to be immune to the optics-oriented nature of our industry. I don’t want my identity to be that of the sick girl,” she says.

The isolation she felt navigating her diagnosis made silence feel impossible. “I can’t not share my personal experience because it made me realize that there will be some people out there experiencing autoimmune diseases, adjacent diseases, or other health issues, and feeling so isolated in it. I felt so heartbroken and isolated throughout that time that I felt like I had to speak out about it, even as protective of my privacy as I have been. It felt like a non-negotiable because the reason why I got into this industry was to hopefully play nuanced, paradoxical, flawed, empowered, strong women that are ultimately at the end of the day grounded in their humanity, and this disease just makes me human.”

The scrutiny surrounding her appearance during that period only intensified the experience, as Moriarty faced significant online criticism surrounding her fluctuating weight. “The low body weight version of myself, the version of myself that looks the sickest, that could potentially be criticized from a superficial standpoint, that is the version of myself that was fighting death every day, showing up to work to try and keep Annie in this story for the audience,” she says. “And only I know that version of me put my body through so much just to show up on any given day.”

In many ways, Moriarty speaks about Annie the same way she speaks about herself: as someone trying to do the right thing inside systems that make grace difficult. That parallel became especially clear during production on the series finale. After months of feeling disconnected from herself and her surroundings, Moriarty began treatment for Graves’ disease while filming the show’s final episodes. While shooting the ending, the fog finally lifted. “When I started to go through treatment, I was present, and it was kind of wild. It made me realize I was offline for a while. I came back online, and I looked up around me as soon as I started treatment, and I was like, Oh my god, it’s you guys. It’s my cast members, I remember you guys. That’s how offline I was,” she says. But rather than mourn what she missed, what Moriarty remembers the most from filming the finale is gratitude. “Counterintuitively, that final episode was one of the happiest moments of my life,” she says.

Now, with The Boys meant to come to an end, Moriarty finds herself still learning how to separate from the character who shaped much of her adult life. When asked how she hopes Annie will be remembered, she points to how women don’t become less powerful when they make mistakes, or come across as contradictory or uncertain—if anything, it makes them more human. “She was trying her best within an extremely, extremely complicated, misogynistic, dark, corrupt world. And she did the best she could,” says Moriarty. “She made mistakes along the way. I’ve seen people criticize her for that. I’m like, No, no, no, but to me, women who make mistakes and are still strong are stronger than the women who make every right decision.”

Understandably, after spending nearly a decade together, saying goodbye remains difficult. “I’ve tried to figure out a way to say goodbye to Annie whilst also thanking her, and it’s been really hard. I really care for that character. I am really protective of that character, and I don’t want to say goodbye to her, but I have to,” says Moriarty. “I am still in the process of saying goodbye to her, and I think it’s going to take me some time. I think that’s okay because, you know, I played her for eight years. She still lives in me, and I hope I get to take the best parts of her and the best lessons of her and incorporate them into who I am.”

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