Billy Eichner And Luke Macfarlane On Hitting Authentic Comedy Gold With ‘Bros’

“I wanted it to be really honest and authentic to the gay experience, but I kept saying to Nick (Stoller) and Judd (Apatow), ‘Are straight people going to get this?’ They kept saying, ‘We are two of the straightest men alive, and we get it,'” explained lead actor and co-writer Billy Eichner as we discussed the new romantic comedy, Bros. “They basically define straight male comedy filmmaking for 20 years.”

Released by Universal Studios, it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and is getting rave reviews from both straight and LGBTQ+ audiences.

“It’s fascinating to (straight audiences), it’s giving them a little peek behind the curtain at a culture that they may think they know from seeing wacky gay sitcom characters over the years, but they don’t really know,” Eichner mused.

I caught up with him and co-star Luke Macfarlane, who plays the love interest, Aaron, to Eichner’s Bobby, to discuss the hilarious and heartwarming comedy that is proving skeptics wrong.

Simon Thompson: The last couple of weeks have been this rollercoaster of reactions from people at the Toronto Film Festival and reviews. Has the positive response been a validation of what you already knew?

Billy Eichner: It’s a huge relief. It’s very exciting and thrilling, really. It sounds like a cliche, but to be at Toronto, to be a romantic comedy, among all these heavyweights with Spielberg, was shocking to us. We are walking on air to be able to go, so to hear 1700 people in a theater at once really laughing out loud, consistently from start to finish, we could not have wished for a better reception. It felt like a rock concert in there. We had a ton of advanced screenings in the week afterward, all over North America, and the reaction was so positive. Yes, people are responding to the historical nature of it, but the historical part doesn’t mean that much if the movie isn’t hilarious. People remember laughing out loud; you don’t walk out of a film and say, ‘Wow, that was historic.’ You say, ‘Wow, that was funny,’ or, ‘That moved me to tears,’ and that’s what we’re seeing. Straight audiences love it, because it’s giving them everything they love about a Judd Apatow movie, all those big laughs, all that physical comedy, and all the shocking moments. Still, at the same time, it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen for many. It’s fascinating to them, it’s giving them a little peek behind the curtain at a culture that they may think they know from seeing wacky gay sitcom characters over the years, but they don’t really know.

Luke Macfarlane: I think validation comes in stages. Yes, there’s validation in the sense of critical reviews and good responses from the audience, but validation also comes from people going to see the film. Universal is certainly putting its efforts into making sure everybody does that. That is the next big validation that I hope we get.

Thompson: The amount of promotional support that Universal is putting behind Bros is phenomenal. I don’t know what it is like elsewhere, but here in LA, it is on the most prominent billboards in the primest locations. Bros is being advertised in spaces usually reserved for the biggest blockbusters. How does it feel to have the studio put its money where its mouth is?

Eichner: It’s thrilling and very gratifying. You also have to say it’s a long time coming and a bit overdue. It took over 100 years for a major studio to make a movie like this, this type of wide release, and with this level of financing and marketing money. That’s not to say we’re not extremely grateful, because we are, and I think they’re doing it not because it’s historic but because I’d like to think we did a good job. We’ve been screening this movie for months now under the radar at multiplexes all over North America, for audiences that were mostly straight, sometimes for audiences that were more LGBTQ, and everyone has the same very positive reaction. People are saying, ‘Wow, it’s been so long since we went to a movie theater and just sat there and laughed with hundreds of people.’ That’s a rare experience nowadays. I grew up having these types of movies, not with gay people, but romantic comedies were released much more frequently when I was a kid. We don’t get them nowadays. I’m grateful and thankful, and I admire Universal for, like you said, putting their money where their mouth is here.

Macfarlane: And they’re not doing that because they’re correcting the wrong, but because they did the market tests. They know what they’re doing. They’re very good at that.

Thompson: You mention straight crowds getting Bros. I saw it about a month ago; I was laughing one of the loudest in the room. There are jokes and situations which are entirely not about my lifestyle, but I got them because funny is funny.

Eichner: I’m shocked and relieved to report as someone who has worked hard honing every joke with Nick for five years, staying up late asking if the rhythm of a line will still work if we change one word. We’ve been sitting in audiences now, and they are laughing out loud no matter who they are. I was worried when we were developing the movie because I wanted it to be really honest and authentic to the gay experience, but I kept saying to Nick and Judd, ‘Are straight people going to get this?’ They kept saying, ‘We are two of the straightest men alive, and we get it.’ They basically defined straight male comedy filmmaking for 20 years, saying, ‘We think this is hysterical, and we can tell that it’s honest. It’s funny because it’s honest.’ It’s fascinating and surprising to people unaware of the culture and how things actually play out when two men are dating in 2022. They kept encouraging me to be as honest as possible, and they said the audience would feel that it would make the comedic and emotional moments land harder. We are seeing that play out.

Thompson: Luke, what was the audition process for you? Billy, how did you know that Luke was the guy for this?

Macfarlane: The big assignment in the movie is to fall in love, and the thing that makes Aaron funny is that he has a hard time letting go of these ideas of masculinity. Talking about jokes that you never know how they’ll land, there’s a scene when we’re in the meadow, and I had these sunglasses that were so aggressively masculine. I wanted to wear them because I thought that would be very funny, so my sense of comedy in the thing comes from his inability to let go of his masculine ideas for a long time. As far as our chemistry goes, we really lucked out with each other.

Eichner: Luke and I didn’t know each other that well before we started shooting the movie. I think that helped because we were discovering each other as our characters were finding each other. We liked each other; we like hanging out, and there’s a mutual respect there. I think maybe at the beginning, when we met each other, there was a little intimidation on both sides, not quite knowing who the other one was. I think that may have helped create that spark initially. Chemistry is a hard thing to define. Movie magic plays a hand in it too.

Macfarlane: I’m also not competing for any of his space. He has this incredible rapid-fire intelligence and witty thing, and both I as an actor and Aaron as a character aren’t fighting for that space at all. It’s never that thing where it’s, ‘I can do anything you can do better.’

Eichner: Thank you for bringing up Annie Get Your Gun.

Thompson: Talking about people’s space, let’s talk about the character Steve in the foursome scene. I swear that is going to be one of those scenes that are considered classic. You both know what it is like to be in the limelight but is the guy who played Steve ready for what will likely come his way?

Eichner: His name is Brock Ciarlelli, and he is so hilarious. I’ve already told them we need a Steve spin-off that’s just called Steve. Everyone’s going to want to know what’s going on with Steve. So people have some context; we have a four-way in the movie, and Steve is sort of the odd man out. No one wants to deal with Steve, and I think, in different ways, we’ve all been Steve at one point or another, which is why that scene gets so many laughs. I don’t mean just in four ways, but you know, metaphorically speaking, at dinner parties and things like that. Steve is a legendary character, and I’m excited for Brock.

Mcfarlane: We didn’t know what was going to happen, and he just found all that stuff. It was hilarious.

Eichner: There was a lot of improv going on there.

Bros lands in theaters on Friday, September 30, 2022.