Actor Laz Alonso: How ‘The Boys’ Balances Emotional Depth and Comic Levity

Laz Alonso has fought the human race, and now he is fighting a single, very large member of it.

The actor, who plays Mother's Milk on Prime Video's 'The Boys,' joined Rich on Friday to talk about the new season and the unlikely arc that has carried him from the original 'Avatar' to a fight scene with a character nicknamed Love Sausage. 'I was fighting against the human race in Avatar,' Alonso said. 'And I have progressed in my career to fight against a large member of the human race in The Boys. I'll say they're both equally challenging.'

The levity, he argued, is what keeps the show from collapsing under its own subject matter. Without it, Mother's Milk 'would just be tortured 24/7.' Alonso singled out Chase Crawford's work as The Deep, a lot of it filmed alone, as a season highlight. He also conceded that the role has tested family reactions in a way most jobs don't. His mother, an older Cuban woman, has watched some of his more notorious scenes. The jokes at home, he said, 'are never-ending.'

Underneath the spectacle, Alonso takes the show's allegory seriously. He grew up in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s and '90s, he told Rich, without much money, and the through line of 'The Boys' tracks with what he learned then. 'You can achieve whatever you put your mind to. You just can't give up,' he said. 'You're going to get knocked down, but as long as you don't get knocked out, get up. Keep fighting.'

The message his character is trying to deliver, he said, sits one layer above the gore. 'It's a superhero show, but you don't need to have superpowers to be powerful. You can be powerful just by using your voice. Just by standing your ground and speaking truth to power. That's where our power lies. And never forget that and never give that up.'

Three episodes remain in the season. Fan theories are running hot off the monologue Alonso recently delivered, where Mother's Milk tells another character what they both know he needs to do. Jeff Passan, the ESPN baseball insider who joined the show earlier this hour, told Rich he is afraid the character is going to eat it. Alonso has heard the theory. He is not confirming or denying. 'Whether something happens, who knows? We'll see. We got three episodes to see what happens to him or with him.'

What he is willing to commit to is the character's posture in the meantime. 'The one thing that he's always going to be is powerful, and representing the people who on the surface may appear not to be powerful. But when you're together and when you unite, you're unstoppable.' The conversation visibly moved him as he made the point. Rich noticed. Alonso did not look away from it.