Why Mother’s Milk Actor Laz Alonso Looks Unrecognizable In Season 4

“The Boys” is full of larger-than-life characters. From the fascistic narcissist Homelander (Antony Starr) to deep-sea pervert The Deep (Chace Crawford), bringing these colorful characters to life — and giving some of them gruesome deaths — has been the Prime Video hit’s secret weapon.

Despite all the bloodshed and mutilations, the main cast has looked surprisingly consistent throughout the show’s run, which is set to end with the upcoming fifth and final Season. Starlight (Erin Moriarty) may have hung up her costume, but Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Butcher (Karl Urban) are still rocking the same looks they had in Season 1. That consistency does not extend to one member of The Boys: Mother’s Milk.

Played by Laz Alonso, Mother’s Milk looks a little different between Seasons 3 and 4, and in an interview with Men’s Health, Alonso explained that when he was first cast, he worked hard to match the comic-book version of the character. This involved going “heavy on caloric surplus” to bulk up for the role of a tough, seasoned fighter who is not afraid to go after bloodthirsty superheroes and villains. But during the production of “The Boys” Season 3 — which coincided with COVID-era shutdowns — Alonso jokes that he “went from looking like the comic to looking like the very inflated version of the comic.”

Alonso partly blames the convenience of food delivery apps, which allowed him to get his favorite meals delivered while filming in Toronto. While he was happy to discover the city’s best pizza and burger joints, the habit resulted in the actor gaining around 40 pounds. The process was so gradual that he didn’t even notice the change in his appearance until he saw himself on the promotional posters for the show.

Luckily for Alonso, he met with showrunner Erik Kripke to discuss his character’s future, and Kripke let him know that Mother’s Milk would be “going through a big transition” in “The Boys” Season 4 as he joins a White House task force to solve their Homelander problem. Alonso had gained the weight for his character in the first place, and this new storyline was the perfect excuse to cut back on the pizza and burgers in real life, so that he could signal to the audience that his character had changed.