‘Bros’: Billy Eichner Was Forced to Film the Only 2 Scenes With Luke Macfarlane He Asked Not to Shoot on the First Day
Bros actors Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane bring a lot of themselves to the silver screen. The Judd Apatow-produced film follows two men named Bobby and Aaron who begin to fall in love, despite the fact that they both have commitment issues. Eichner co-wrote the screenplay with director Nicholas Stoller, so he knew what the production required of him. Nevertheless, he had to spend his first day of shooting working on the only two types of scenes that he asked not to film first for the LGBTQ rom-com.
Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane never met before ‘Bros’
According to an interview with Collider, Eichner and Macfarlane never met before working on Bros. The film requires them to have chemistry that reads on screen, but the actors actually thought that played to their advantage when it came time to shoot the scenes. Macfarlane was an Eichner fan before they crossed paths, but they never met in person before.
“I knew Billy, I’ve been a big fan of his,” Macfarlane said. “We had never actually met personally, so stepping into that room the first time, I felt like I understood the guy and I understood who Aaron was, but I really, really, really wanted to impress him. It was nice when we kind of hit it off in the room. It was very nice.”
Eichner agreed with Macfarlane, but thought that it helped with the development of their characters.
“We didn’t know each other,” Eichner confirmed. “I do think that helped in a way because we got to discover each other as our characters were discovering each other. I don’t know, we’re very similar in certain ways. We’re very different in certain ways. I think we have a lot of respect for each other, but also, I don’t know, intimidate each other a little bit. We make each other a little nervous, partially because we didn’t really know each other. I don’t know. It just worked for some reason. It’s hard to explain why.”
‘Bros’ actor Billy Eichner didn’t want to film sex scenes or his emotional monologue on the first day
However, Bros actor Eichner still didn’t want to film the sex scenes or his character’s monologue on the first day. Unfortunately, there isn’t always a choice in the filming order, depending on locations and other factors. Eichner found that he would have to shoot the most difficult scenes on the very first day before he got the opportunity to know Macfarlane better.
“I said, ‘I’ll do anything, but I have two requests,'” Eichner recalled. “‘I have a big scene in the middle of the movie. This monologue where I reveal a lot to Luke’s character.’ I said, ‘Please don’t have me do that on the first day of shooting. And also don’t have me do any intense sex scenes with Luke on the first day of shooting.'”
Eichner continued: “And I did both on the first day of shooting. And Nick was like, ‘I’m really sorry. The way locations work and everything, we have to do these on the first day.’ And that was something I really had to wrap my head around, but I’m proud of how it all came out.”
Macfarlane chimed in: “I remember shooting that scene, and the first day of shooting you’re learning everybody’s name. You still don’t know the DP’s name, you still don’t know the people that are doing your hair and stuff.”
He concluded: “And I’m lying there listening to this monologue and going, what movie are we making, because you’re also having that conversation in your head. You’re like, what is this thing we’re making? And this monologue, I think, is the heart of the movie in so many ways. So yeah. We really had to dive in.”
The movie got review bombed before release
Eichner and Macfarlane made history with Bros, which marks the first gay rom-com distributed by a major Hollywood studio with an all-LGBTQ cast. However, not everybody can handle nice things. Many movie-reviewing platforms don’t allow audiences to rate films before their release, but IMDb still tends to allow them to do so.
According to Slashfilm, homophobic reviewers bombed the IMDb page with negative scores and comments ahead of its Sept. 30 release date. The platform later removed the ability to rate the movie early to avoid any further spamming.
