‘The Boys’ Star Laz Alonso Shares His Surprising Weight Gain Experience

One of the more intriguing behind-the-scenes tales from ‘The Boys’ involves no superpowers, no showrunner drama, and no leaked scripts. It centers around Laz Alonso, a promotional poster, and a moment of genuine self-discovery.

The actor, who portrays Mother’s Milk throughout all five seasons of the Prime Video series, has opened up about the personal journey behind one of the show’s most discussed physical transformations.

In a conversation with Men’s Health, Alonso revealed that he initially maintained a caloric surplus at the beginning of the show, aiming to physically embody the comic book version of his character during the first two seasons. This approach worked well until the pandemic altered the production landscape completely.

During Season 3, filmed during and after COVID-era shutdowns, Alonso found himself relying heavily on food delivery apps while shooting in Toronto, discovering the city’s best pizza and burger spots along the way. This habit gradually added around 40 pounds to his frame without him realizing it. The moment of recognition, when it finally arrived, was both amusing and sobering.

I was heavy on caloric surplus when I first started the show. Season 1 and 2, I wanted to look like the comic. Season 3, we shot during and after COVID and I went from looking like the comic to looking like a very inflated version of the comic.

Uber Eating every day, eating a lot of pizza, eating a lot of burgers. I discovered Toronto’s best pizzas and burgers. I put on close to 40lbs. It didn’t hit me until I saw the promotional posters for season 3 and I saw my face. I was like, ‘Who the heck is that?’ I actually asked Amazon if they had added weight to me. I didn’t realize how big I had gotten. For a guy that’s six feet, with shoes on, I was pushing 250lbs and it was a lot of weight.

When the promotional posters for Season 3 were unveiled, Alonso was taken aback by his own image, genuinely failing to recognize himself. His immediate reaction was to reach out to Amazon and inquire whether they had digitally altered his appearance, convinced the image must have been manipulated. It had not been. He was, as he later humorously noted, simply pushing 250 pounds and referring to it as “Mother’s Butter Milk.”

It wasn’t healthy. Before season 4 came around, I wanted to do something real different. I always meet with [Eric] Kripke at the top of the season and he told me, ‘This season, Mother’s Milk is gonna go through a big transition’ so I wanted to, in his OCD fashion, to depict that and show that visibly. I went into an extreme calorie reduction. I shaved because now he reports directly to the White House.

This wake-up call prompted Alonso to consult with showrunner Erik Kripke ahead of Season 4, where he learned that Mother’s Milk would undergo a significant personal transition, stepping into a more disciplined leadership role within the team. Alonso viewed this storyline as the perfect opportunity to align his internal changes with external ones, leading him to adopt an extreme calorie reduction before filming.

The transformation was so striking that many fans watching Season 4 speculated that the character had been recast, with some expressing concern that the change resembled the appearance of an actor dealing with illness. Alonso addressed these concerns directly in his Men’s Health interview, clarifying that the shift was entirely his own decision, motivated by personal health goals and a desire to authentically reflect his character’s arc on screen.

This story serves as a reminder of how much the physical reality of a long-running production can differ from what audiences perceive, and how easily the line between craft and life can blur during years of continuous filming. For Alonso, what began as a character-driven dietary choice quietly evolved into something he needed to confront for himself. The promotional poster just happened to be the moment it all clicked.

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