“I’m not against them, I’m not an antirelationship person. “I haven’t had many serious relationships in my adult life,” he said. Still, he agreed to write “Bros.” Even though he worried he wouldn’t have anything to say. “It was just always implied that my options would be very limited,” he said. And that even gay roles - in “In & Out,” say, or “The Birdcage,” or “Brokeback Mountain,” which “Bros” briefly satirizes - were often played by straight actors.
I could be Tom Hanks in this movie.”īut two decades in the entertainment industry had taught him that as a gay man, the Tom Hanks roles were not available to him. Staring up at the screen, as a 14-year-old, Eichner remembered thinking, “I could do that. His parents took him to “When Harry Met Sally,” “Pretty Woman” (yikes), “Dirty Dancing,” “Sleepless in Seattle.”
And he had come to believe he never would. “Definitely,” Stoller remembers Eichner saying.Įichner, speaking in April from, as he put it, “Las Vegas, of all terrible places,” where he had just debuted the “Bros” trailer, remembers it a little differently.
He thought immediately of Eichner, whom he had worked with on “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” and the acerbic Netflix series “Friends From College.” In between seasons of that show, he called Eichner up, suggesting they collaborate. “I’m the diversity hire,” Stoller, who is straight, told me.
