Bros cast reveal painful experiences on Hollywood sets: 'I was asked to play into a stereotype'
Billy Eichner's Bros marks one of the first times a major movie studio has funded a theatrical rom-com about two gay men falling in love — but, as the predominantly LGBTQIA+ cast of the new film exclusively tells EW, the road was paved with painful experiences on many sets throughout their careers.
In the film, Luke Macfarlane (until now best known for Hallmark holiday romances) plays Aaron, the hunky lawyer who falls for Eichner's career-driven Bobby. But before he attained leading love-interest status in Universal's Bros, he says a director once asked him to create a clichéd portrayal of a gay man for a TV project.
"I won't name it by name, but I was [playing] a ballet teacher, and he ended up murdering a girl, but because they wanted me to be the decoy…. the director asked me [to] 'maybe be more flamboyant,' so I was asked to play into a stereotype of a gay person, because we wouldn't think the gay person would end up raping and murdering the ballet student," Macfarlane explains. "But he did!"
EW Luke Macfarlane and Billy Eichner talk past LGBTQIA+ exploitation in EW's 'Bros' Around the Table.
Miss Lawrence, who appears in Bros as one of the members on the board of Bobby's planned LGBTQ History Museum, points to micro-aggressive moments she's experienced in Hollywood that not only cut deep on a personal level, but also interfered with her concentration during production.
"I worked on a project, and I remember the first day of taping, after the first scene, someone came up to me, like, 'I'm watching the monitor and you are just killing it, and to think, when they told me your part, I was like, 'Yeah right, no way, never!' And I'm like, what? You're telling me this?" she says, later remembering another instance that saw a fellow actor calling her "just too much for TV."
"I wanted to wear her out, I wanted to fight her," Lawrence continues. "But I knew it was going to be on the queen, they were going to blame the queen, so, I had to sit there and hold my composure."
Ts Madison, a viral digital creator and actress who's appeared on several episodes of her longtime friend and collaborator RuPaul's Emmy-winning reality competition show RuPaul's Drag Race, says that, while Ru had a significant hand in bringing her into his Hollywood circle of projects, a crew member working on the production of the 2016 game show Gay for Play shaded her during a commercial break, unbeknownst to others on the program. (EW clarified with Madison that it was not a member of the World of Wonder production staff that said this to her.)
"In my mind, I had to say, Madison, tear this place up a different way, smile, do your job, and don't let Ru down," she says. "But I was ready to tear that place up [like], this doesn't have anything to do with you, Ru wanted me here."
Bros — which the cast agrees was one of the most welcoming and collaborative sets they've worked on — is now playing in theaters nationwide. Watch EW's full Around the Table interview above.
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