Billy Eichner Says He Wants Bros to ‘Remind People of How Much Fun it is to Go to a Movie’
Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane are sitting next to each other on a loveseat in a posh Chicago hotel suite discussing their new film, Bros, when Macfarlane pats Eichner’s shoulder several times. The star is expressing his gratitude for Eichner, the fiery talent behind Billy on the Street and the man responsible for giving birth to the comedy in which the two men star — the first LGBTQ+ rom-com, in fact, to be backed by a major studio and make it to the big screen.
Or haven’t you heard?
That’s Bros. Super fun and thoroughly clever. The modern-day rom-com/brom-com about two very different gay men searching for meaning and connection hits theaters on Sept. 30. But Eichner — tall, lean, perhaps a tad shy in real life compared to his hilarious on-the-street romps — isn’t letting the sudden attention deter him.
“We basically just drive around with the limo doors open,” Macfarlane kids. Eichner laughs and shrugs. “One of the nice things about getting to this level of visibility when you’re older — I’m a middle-aged man — is that I’m not going to let it get to my head. My career has been a real slow burn. You just can’t get wrapped up with all that stuff.”
It’s good stuff, though. Universal Pictures was confident enough about the movie, which Eichner co-wrote with director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and produced alongside Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, This Is 40), to send its headliners on a major press tour.
Plus: The film, which chronicles the unlikely pairing of two very different gay men, hasn’t been released yet and it’s already generated a bevy of favorable reviews. Things are ripe.
“I’ve always been focused on working hard on the movie, and wanting people to see it,” Eichner went on. “I’ve been at this for a long time, whether people know that or not. I got used to people getting the attention and whatnot over the course of 10 years or so. It didn’t all hit me at once. Sometimes, I think it would have been fun to be a movie star at 25. But I’m grateful that didn’t happen because I probably would have gone completely insane in a second.”
Macfarlane nods. “My career is similar. It’s been a very slow burn, too. I’ve always worked, but nothing with the kind of acclaim, attention, and press budget behind it as Bros. I’ve been thinking a lot about how grateful I am for the decisions I made as a young person that led me here. One of them was coming out. That was instrumental to me getting cast in this. I’m grateful to my younger self for doing that.”
Boy Meets Boy in Bros
Bros stands out for many reasons. There’s Eichner’s wit, of course — by his own admission, he’s been at “this” for a while. Roles in TV series such as Difficult People, American Horror Story, and Friends From College captured attention, but Billy on the Street, Eichner’s hilarious escapades interviewing New York City pedestrians about pop culture — often with a guest star in tow — hit a sweet spot. Recently, Paul Rudd went along for a ride when Eichner put Billy back on the pavement to promote Bros.
Believe the buzz about the film. It is historic. Eichner is the first openly gay man to co-write and star in his own major studio film, but its LGBTQ+ principle cast — featuring Guy Branum, Miss Lawrence, Ts Madison, Dot-Marie Jones, Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, Monica Raymund, Guillermo Díaz, Jai Rodriguez, and Amanda Bearse — make the feel-good movie noteworthy.
Eichner plays Bobby Leiber, an outspoken podcaster, who’s grown weary of gay dating apps and finding a true connection. When he meets Aaron, a more reserved, hunky, masculine estate lawyer, suddenly there may be something there for the two men to explore. Will they?
Bros is good. Eichner and Stoller made sure of that.
“Judd Apatow, Nick Stoller. We’re all comedy guys at heart,” Eichner said. “I want Bros to remind people of how much fun it is to go to a movie and laugh with hundreds of other people in a theater. We haven’t gotten very much of that in the past few years. They don’t release many comedies in theaters anymore. Comedy became a thing that goes straight to a streaming platform, and you watch it at home alone. Or maybe with one or two other people.”
Eichner said he was reminded of the joys of a visceral group experience that had all but vanished during the pandemic during early screenings of Bros. “It’s a real communal experience,” he added. “I grew up having that experience all the time. It’s what made me want to make movies and be in entertainment. And we don’t get that anymore.”
Why Bros? Why Now?
Macfarlane’s career spans roles in Brothers & Sisters, Killjoys, and many a Hallmark Channel movie. When asked what he hopes audiences take away from Bros, he points out how Aaron and Bobby’s potential relationship shows the similarities of love.
“Although gay relationships are incredibly different, Bobby and Aaron are still two people who need to be vulnerable in order to arrive in each other’s lives; in order to fall in love,” he said. “I hope that there’s some universal themes about that, especially as it applies to the sort of hyper-masculinity and masculine culture, and these ideas that our culture seems so weirdly obsessed with now—that we need to be tougher, we need to be harder, we need to be ‘manly,’ to be powerful in the world. Bros comments on that — that you can still be a man, and not a [expletive].”
Eichner chimed in: “I wanted to give the LGBTQ+ audience a story and characters that felt authentic to who we are and how we really behave. That’s something very comforting for LGBTQ+ folks because we haven’t gotten a lot of movies like this. And for straight people, I think it’s fun and exciting because they’re getting a peek behind the curtain into a culture they might think they know from seeing a few wacky gay sitcom characters over the years, but that they don’t really know.”
He was quick to note that whenever he, Stoller, and Apatow had doubts about anything, “We always came back to, ‘Is it hilarious? Is it honest?’ Those were our two goals.’”
Bros: Behind The Scenes
By all accounts, Macfarlane stood out in terms of casting the “right” Aaron. Eichner and Stoller wanted an actor who could embody a masculine, well, “bro,” who’d test Bobby’s vulnerabilities. And vice versa. One moment during Macfarlane’s audition struck a chord. He playfully smack-tapped Eichner in a way two flirting people would “pat’ each other.
Macfarlane chuckled. “I guess I did, but I don’t remember it.”
“It was funny,” Eichner recalled, “because it was Luke’s first audition; that first scene we read together, where Bobby and Aaron meet at the club. You could see it in the behind-the-scenes feature that they just made. I was startled, but it’s not like a violent thing, it was just like a tap.”
Macfarlane searched his memory while Eichner goes on.
“Those are the first words Luke and we ever spoke to each other — we didn’t know each other at all. There was one moment in the scene where there’s that tension between our two characters when they meet. Luke broke that tension at one point and just kind of slapped my knee when I wasn’t expecting it—in a playful, flirtatious way. That was just one sign that Luke understood the tension between the two characters.”
He said romantic comedies live or die, no matter how good the script is, on the chemistry between the two leads.
“We’ve seen many movies where they throw together two movie stars and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t, even when they’re both really talented,” Eichner added. “And we had every gay actor in the world, some of them amazing actors [auditioning] — like, many of them. I mean, Ian McKellen — we didn’t have the same sexual chemistry.”
He joked. “But for some reason, there was a spark there [between Luke and I], maybe because we didn’t know each other.”
Macfarlane nodded. “There’s an observation in Bros about this sort of gay erotic kind of tension around locker rooms that I certainly identify with growing up. You know, the Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein ads. I understood that really well. Billy wrote that all in the script.”
Bonding During Bros
Eichner and Stoller’s script is filled with plenty of levity and insight. It also features appearances by Debra Messing, Bowen Yang, and Tony winner Harvey Fierstein. On screen, the cast shines, and Eichner and Macfarlane walked away from the experience with a newfound appreciation of each other.
“Billy is incredibly funny,” Macfarlane shared. “It was amazing watching somebody star, produce, and write. It was that thing where, when your opportunity comes, you really must be ready to do it. You don’t complain. You just do it all. I’m talking on a big level. Nobody’s interested in how long or hard your day was. You just have to [expletive] do it. That was the lesson I learned: Don’t squander your moment because it might never come again.”
Eichner said he truly appreciated what Macfarlane brought to the set.
“Luke is a very kind person — that’s one of the things I noticed,” he said, glancing at his costar. “We were getting to know each other just as our characters were. You know, I’m a native New Yorker. I move through life with a certain type of energy, sometimes with blinders, the way New Yorkers do when there are hundreds of us walking around, yet we act like there’s no one there. It’s why Billy on the Street works. And Luke is Canadian, right? He’s kind and thinks so much about everyone around him. I’d like to think I do that, too, but I don’t know. Just having Luke be like that when I was in the midst of all this chaos reminded me to also be a kind, good person.”
Macfarlane grinned and turned to his costar: “I think I also showed you a great ab workout, too.”
Eichner laughed. “Right. I was going to say I learned a lot of workout tricks from Luke. Because I had to be naked on screen opposite this guy, so, I better get pumped up at the gym even though I’ve had no sleep.”
They laughed. They’re happy. They’re bros.
Bros, a Universal Pictures release, hits theaters on Sept. 30.