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Exclusive: Billy Eichner and his director Nicholas Stoller talk to Total Film about their new romcom

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," director and co-writer Nicholas Stoller tells Total Film in the latest issue of the magazine, headlined by Halloween Ends (opens in new tab) . "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."

Stoller’s co-writer, Billy Eichner, who plays the above-mentioned Bobby, was shocked by the lack of notes. "I kept waiting," he says. "I mean, I’ve been openly gay in comedy and in Hollywood since the beginning of my career – I didn’t come out to write a memoir or be on the cover of People magazine – so I kept waiting because I’m so conditioned to that being an obstacle. But to the credit of everyone at Universal, I never heard, one time, ‘This is too gay, this is too explicit, this is going to scare straight people.’ 

"Now, I don’t know what internal conversations they had among themselves. And maybe they were just smart enough to know in our current culture they should not say that to me, and they should just make peace with that on their own. I don’t know. I wasn’t privy to all those conversations. But I never got a note, or even a suggestion, that we were taking things too far, or we were keeping things too real.”

That's just a taster of our Bros preview in the new issue of Total Film, which is on newsstands this Thursday – while subscribers have their copies now! Order your copy of Total Film here (opens in new tab) or subscribe to Total Film here (opens in new tab) and never miss another issue. You can currently grab three issues for just £3!

Also in the new issue: Jamie Lee Curtis talking Halloween Ends, Sex Education breakout Emma Mackay discusses Emily and Barbie, and Olivia Wilde talks Don't Worry Darling. Plus, so much more!

Jamie Graham is the Editor-at-Large of Total Film magazine. You'll likely find them around these parts reviewing the biggest films on the planet and speaking to some of the biggest stars in the business – that's just what Jamie does. Jamie has also written for outlets like SFX and the Sunday Times Culture, and appeared on podcasts exploring the wondrous worlds of occult and horror. 

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