‘The Boys’ actor explains Homelander’s obsession with milk
Anthony Starr, the Homelander himself, talks about the origin of his character’s obsession with milk and how the gag became a leitmotif.
Season 4 of ‘The Boys’ continues with everything the show is known for on Prime Video, as we see Homelander become even more dangerous, with a state of mind that brings out the big psychopath in him. However, one of the elements that has followed this character since Season 1, and has slowly become an element that straddles the line between funny and depraved, is a sick obsession with milk. In light of this, the actor who brings the leader of the Seven to life, Anthony Starr, has spoken about it.
Homelander’s sick obsession with milk, revealed
In a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone, Starr talked about the milk fetish his character has had throughout the series, and how he found a scene in Season 2 that deserved to be repeated throughout the series.
“It started with X-ray visioning my Oedipal mummy figure [Elisabeth Shue’s Madelyn Stillwell] while she was breastfeeding, and me pining like that and having a jealous relationship with the baby,” said Starr. “And then at the start of Season 2, I found some of her… Homelander found some of her breast milk in a freezer and lasers it, starts drinking it, gets caught.”
“And it was so funny and weird, and I think I sent Eric (Kripke, ‘The Boys’ showrunner) an email after that scene going, ‘Dude, we gotta get as much milk in this show as possible. This is gonna be like a little motif or a signature thing. Like, we have to do it.’ And he was like, ‘One step ahead of you, brother. I’m putting it in everything.’ And so now every opportunity we get, the milk thing comes out. We don’t have to do anything with it, either. If I just look at someone and sip milk, there’s a twist to it. It’s become a really fun thing. The fans have really glommed on to it. And enjoyed it.”
Aside from being a running gag in the series, we know from the last few chapters of the season that Homelander has certain traumas and conditioning that have allowed Vought to control him. The character, who did not have a healthy upbringing, was an experiment by some scientists, has a trauma due to a lack of affection and a need to belong to a family, and, according to Kirpke in an interview with Collider, has human vulnerabilities that the character hates and cannot control.
“He finds his human vulnerability so hateful and he hates that part of him and he tries to subsume it, and yet it is part of who he is,” he said. “And so he hates a part of him that he can’t ultimately control, and so that kind of leads to a snake’s nest of psychoses. At the moment, that is his current weakness.”