Pride and Prejudice

The Judd Apatow-produced BROS is the first gay romantic comedy by a major studio. It’s important and funny AF – the best romcom for years. Total Film talks to writer star Billy Eichner, co-star Luke Macfarlane and director Nicholas Stoller about bantz, butt-pics and making big-time history.

- JAMIE GRAHAM

There’s a scene in romantic comedy Bros in which lead character Bobby is looking to hook up with a guy on a dating app but the guy won’t commit until Bobby’s sent through a butt pic (Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never had to worry about this stuff). Panicked, Bobby scurries to the bathroom to shave his ass. But hurried and horny, he nicks it with the razor. “What am I meant to do now?” he wails. “I can’t shit, I can’t fuck.” The above should put to bed any worries that a major studio making a gay romcom will mean it’s heavily sanitised for mainstream audiences. And if that doesn’t alarm Middle America, wait until Bobby states, “Jesus was gay.”

“Universal was very trusting in the process,” says director and co-writer Nicholas Stoller. “Their notes tend to be macro notes: ‘The ending isn’t good enough’ or ‘This character’s arc isn’t clear enough.’ When it comes to jokes and set-pieces, they just trust us. And honestly, the test audience would tell us if something went too far. And usually a test audience reacts because something starts to feel false. It’s never like, ‘Oh, that’s too much.’” Stoller grins. “So the butt-shaving thing… Everyone has felt insecure; everyone has felt vulnerable; everyone has felt like they don’t look good. Even if you’ve never shaved your ass, everyone’s had a version of that. So no one blinked. Everyone thought it was hilarious.”