Billy Eichner wanted Bros gay sex scenes to feel ‘real’ and not ‘cartoonish’ or like porn
The writer-actor of the gay rom-com says gay sex scenes aren't usually "funny or romantic" without being dirty.
Words: Alastair James; pictures: Collider
Billy Eichner has said he didn’t want the gay sex scenes in his upcoming film, Bros, to feel real and not “cartoonish” or like porn.
Bros is the first gay-rom com to be produced by a major Hollywood studio (Universal) and was co-written and stars Eichner, along with an entirely LGBTQ principal cast.
Speaking to Collider about the film at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April, Eichner discussed how important the sex scenes were and how he wanted them to come across.
“Sex is romantic and it’s also really funny”
“It’s a part of life, you know?” he told Collider. “It’s a part of dating. For straight people, for gay people, for bi people, for everyone. And we’re making a romantic comedy. Sex is romantic and it’s also really funny.”
“And how can you do a story about two people falling for each other and not deal with sex?” he continued.
“Also, I will say, gay people, gay men, we just haven’t had many stories where sex was funny and romantic, without it being something dirty. It’s like we’ve either had two-dimensional sitcom characters who talked about sex, but in a very cartoonish way that didn’t feel real. Or we have porn, you know?
“There’s nothing in between that feels human and real,” he said.
Underlining why the scenes were important Billy said they added to the film’s authenticity and that they’d had a good response from test audiences.
“There was one straight guy at a test screening who loved the movie. He was like, ‘Yeah, the sex scenes were like Jackass. They made me a little uncomfortable, but it was so funny. I didn’t care.’ And I was like, great, I’ll take it,” Billy laughed.
While appearing at CinemaCon Billy perfectly skewered Hollywood over how long it’s taken to get a proper gay rom-com.
“I think it’s important that before we got one movie about a gay couple we got two movies about a talking hedgehog,” he joked referring to the Sonic the Hedgehog movies.
Bros will apparently focus on two men with commitment issues attempting to start a relationship. Alongside Eichner, it will star Luke MacFarlane, Drag Race‘s Symone, Saturday Night Live‘s Bowen Yang, Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein and more.
Bros is set for release on 28 October in the UK.
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