Every rom-com needs a gay best friend, even the gay one.
From Buddy in The Woman in Red to Damian in Mean Girls, helpful gays have been dolling out sassy advice and snarky commentary to romantic leads since what feels like the dawn of time. So it makes sense that when Billy Eichner and Nick Stoller set out to produce the first major studio rom-com with queer leads in Bros—in theatres everywhere September 30—the gay best friend would be a key part.
Enter Guy Branum’s character in Bros, Henry, the best friend of Eichner’s lead character Bobby. As Henry, the My Life as a Goddess author and veteran comedian plays the wisecracking best friend, who’s there at every step of Bobby’s romantic journey from the meet-cute through the inevitable end-of-movie declaration of love through song.
It’s a vital role in the delicate rom-com framework, and one Branum takes seriously.
“I love romantic comedies and getting to work with people who really love and respect romantic comedies,” Branum says. “[People] say that romantic comedies are formulaic. And I’m like, ‘Baby, have you seen an Avengers movie?’”
And not only was he on screen dolling out sass, Branum also worked alongside Eichner and director Nick Stoller on punching up the script—meaning a lot of the laughs you’ll be chortling are thanks to him.
Xtra sat down with Branum following Bros’ Toronto International Film Festival premiere to talk about making rom-coms gay, his dream romantic lead and representation for bigger gay guys in the industry.
So, how did you get involved in Bros?
I wrote for Billy on the Street for years, and then when Billy would do one-off stuff, there was sort of a team of L.A. people who would get together and pitch ideas. I just got asked to read at the table read that they did in late 2019. It was so many of the people who ended up being in the movie and a bunch of wonderful people who didn’t, and we were just doing a favour.
After the table read, I heard nothing for a really long time. I heard other people I knew were reading for the movie and reading for the role that I had read and I was just like, “Oh, well, you know, that’s not so unusual for me.” I read the table read, and got some laughs, but they’re gonna get somebody more famous or who looks gayer than I do to play this role. And then they just told me, “Oh, hey, you’re going to Buffalo in spring of 2020.” They had cast me off of just the table read. And then COVID happened and it all went away for two years, and I sort of again assumed there was no way I would be in the movie. And then they called me and they said, “Hey, the movie is starting up again. And also, Billy wants you to come to set and be the on-set punch-up writer.” So I ended up also being a co-producer on the movie and sort of sitting next to [director] Nick Stoller, for the entirety of the shoot, explaining gay things when Billy wasn’t nearby.
It makes sense that you were a punch-up writer because, and I mean this as a high compliment, the movie feels like gay Twitter come to life.
The really wonderful thing is that Billy and Nick wrote the script over the course of two years, and then they had this extra two years to just work on the script. So they really knew what they wanted. Most of what I was doing was just helping or refining or coming up with options for stuff that they already had.
It really was fun to see the movie pop and crackle; there were so many astoundingly gifted improvisers on that set. Watching Jim Rash [who plays the bisexual Robert], just sort of like go off on a run was completely amazing. I knew nothing about Eve Lindley [Tamara] and she showed up and just had a different one-liner for the opening of every scene like she knew she was coming to a Judd Apatow-produced movie.
I get the impression that everybody just liked being around each other. How was it making this movie with a bunch of fellow gays?
It was really lovely. I mean, there were so many people who I really admired for a long time and had never met.
My first day of work at, like, six in the morning, I’m just sort of shoved toward Harvey Fierstein. And, you know, you prepare your “this is what you have meant to me in my life” speech for Harvey Fierstein, which he received with grace. And then a couple of hours later, a little man showed up. And Harvey just hit him and said [mimics Harvey Fierstein] “Mark, this is Guy, you’ll love him.” And it was [composer] Mark Shaiman and that’s how I met Mark Shaiman.
There was just that wonderful feeling of support for each other. It really was just a beautiful set where everyone was excited to be there and really happy to be working.
Speaking of the wealth of amazing people in the film, I appreciated Ts Madison’s comments at the post-premiere Q&A about how projects like this open the door for more stories from different kinds of queer and trans people like her.
We have to acknowledge as a community that we click on the photos of cis white gay guys with abs, like, that is what moves the needle within our community. Look, I’m a cis white gay guy. But I’m also not the sort of thing that gets clicked on, and you understand that and you calculate that into your marketing. I think that’s part of what we understood. I think Billy was just working from his truth and really trying to open up the door for as many people as you could.
I’m excited to see what kinds of movies get made because this one got made.
I really hope it does well, and I hope it opens up people’s minds about the kinds of stories that can be told. And I think one of the coolest things was just getting to watch Judd [Apatow] and Nick just see how talented and funny these people are. For such a long time, it was understood that Hollywood has tried to present diversity as a compromise, failing to realize that it is a strength, especially for comedy.
You get to be the gay best friend in the gay rom-com. How does that feel?
I love it. It was also less pressure on me because I was the one person who had a role that is sometimes played by gay guys and movies. There’s a great tradition from Rosie O’Donnell in Sleepless in Seattle to Rupert Everett in My Best Friend’s Wedding. It’s the most fun role: you get to stand in one place and sling out jokes and have a snide remark for everything. Like, it’s really fun.
I think that there was something really brave and smart about just trying to hook gay male truth into those formulaic structures and understand how they work. Like, having a movie that ends not with, you know, eternity in the prospect of children, but saying “three months, and we’ll re-evaluate”—that’s our truth, and I’m proud of that.
It was really cool to see a sex scene that didn’t feel like straight people’s best estimation of what gay sex was, but just two gay guys having some fun. It was really fun to watch it with Nick because he was like, “Oh, this is so funny.” And I was like, “Yes, and it’s hot,” and he was like, “I did not consider it.”
So, this is the gay guys “just going at it” that Harry Styles was mentioning!
But also the tenderness that Harry Styles has been wanting.
You’ve spoken lots in your comedy and your book My Life as a Goddess, and other about the importance of representation for bigger gay guys. Can you touch on how that plays into your role in the film?
Henry is a well-rounded character who has a sex life and goes out and it’s fun, and he’s like the fat gay guys that I know. The character is based on a friend of Billy’s, who is a, you know, tall, handsome, like, cis gay guy.
I was really surprised that they trusted me with the role, but just so pleased, because so frequently, fat people exist as impediments in other people’s stories. We are objects that are making other people uncomfortable or being difficult. So, frequently fat people in films aren’t even fat people; they are normal-sized people covered in foam rubber.
At most, usually a fat person can get to be funny, but they’re usually desexualized, especially if it’s a gay guy. This was just a role where I was a human being who was fun and funny, and I think that it’s one of those things that comes out of, you know, Billy, knowing me as a human being. This is not a decision that went through a casting director. Billy was just able to show me to Nick and say, “This is my idea,” and Nick was like, “Yes. Wonderful.”
And I think it’s an important step for the people in the chain in between the filmmakers, or the television showrunners and the actors, to keep their minds open about what can fit into somebody’s idea of something. So frequently, when you say server at a restaurant, or when you say lawyer, their head goes to very specific places. It never crosses anybody’s minds that, you know, lots of trans women are lawyers. There are lots of directions that, like, fat people can just be, Person Number Four. It doesn’t require a script that says “very, very terribly fat.”
If you were to be the star of a rom-com, who’s your dream opposite lead?
Oh, that’s a wonderful question. Frequently, it is really hard for me as a writer to think of myself at the centre of stories because for such a long time, people like me weren’t allowed to be at the centre of such stories.
Daniel Franzese is my best first answer. That would be like a good, fun movie. You know, I’m far too intellectual, far too analytical. And he’s bouncy and fun and stylish and I think that we could really get on each other’s nerves while falling in love.
And who would be the gay best friend?
At this point in time, I truly only want the answer to be Eve Lindley. We’ve not had nearly enough trans best friends going on in this world.
But also Scott Thompson from The Kids in the Hall came with me to the premiere, and he is very aggressive about how we need more space for hags in the acronym; he thinks we have forgotten hags. So, you know, I think if we’re telling a story about me and Daniel Franzese falling in love, the place of the cis straight girl in the queer community should never be forgotten.
I remember once early in my queer life, I was at The Cock in New York, and it was, like, 3 a.m., and a straight cis woman walked out of the back room, and I was just like, “That person is a repository of our culture in a way that I’ll never truly understand.”
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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