Billy Eichner On His LGBTQ Rom-Com ‘Bros’: ‘I Feel A Responsibility For It To Do Well’

Entertainment Tonight is entering its new season with three new full-time correspondents! On Friday, the #1 entertainment newsmagazine in the world announced that it's elevating Cassie DiLaura, Denny Directo and Will Marfuggi's roles for season 42.The trio has been part of ET’s digital team as correspondents and producers, with their pieces often appearing across all ET platforms, but will now take on a bigger role for the syndicated, nightly broadcast as full-time correspondents.DiLaura joined Entertainment Tonight in 2018 and most recently served as a digital correspondent and producer. She’s interviewed some of the biggest stars in Hollywood including George Clooney, Kevin Costner, and Sandra Bullock. Her passion for music and expertise has landed her on red carpets for the Grammys, CMT Awards, and the CMA Awards.

While the Emmys drew mixed reviews, the film festivals closed to strong applause this week, not only for their movies (we’d forgotten some) but for their star turnout (forgot a few of them, too).

EJ Panaligan editor Disney, Amazon Studios, Fox Corp., Warner Bros. Discovery and other major Hollywood players are pledging support for the Roybal Film and Television Production Magnet, a major educational outreach initiative championed last year by George Clooney and others. Paramount and NBCUniversal/Telemundo Enterprises are also signing on to become founding partners of the Los Angeles Unified School District magnet facility. These companies join previously announced founding partners History Channel/A+E Networks, Netflix and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The group has committed to providing more than $4 million in funding for the school, which opened in August with 150 students at the Edward G. Roybal Learning Complex in downtown Los Angeles.

EJ Panaligan editor “Bros” co-writer and star Billy Eichner had sincere words to share about his upcoming romantic comedy at the Variety Cover Party at TIFF sponsored by Skyy. “I could have never imagined in a million years that we would have been able to premiere in such a spectacular way,” Eichner said about the buzz behind the film leading up to its release. “Thank you to everyone at Variety, this feature really was the most beautiful, accurate thing that’s ever been written about me.” In a lengthy interview with Variety, Eichner discussed the film’s entirely LGBTQ cast along with the many distinctive ways in which his personal life has influenced the development of the movie’s characters and plot lines. “I’ve worked so hard on it, I care so much about it, and I want it to do well for the sake of the LGBTQ stories getting greenlit,” he told Variety‘s Brent Lang. “So there’s a burden I feel, much as I want to sit here and just talk about how funny the movie is.”

George Clooney is convinced 900,000 lives would have been saved if America had followed Australia’s Covid response. The 61-year-old actor, who filmed his new comedy ‘Ticket to Paradise’ in Australia during the peak of the country’s pandemic lockdown, praised its ultra-strict policy on isolation as “admirable”. He said on Australian current affairs show The Project: “I look at what particularly Australia did, and some of these things get politicised.

also prides themself on not being emotionally available?”In the R-rated comedy, already being cited for its realistic depictions of gay men having sex, Eichner plays Bobby, a brash, blunt podcaster who spearheads an LGBTQ+ museum and falls for Macfarlane’s Garth Brooks-loving estate lawyer Aaron, who is quite a different representative of the community they both inhabit.“It’s interesting to see, as an actor, how many flaws I can have [with a character] and still get away with making the love story happen,” Macfarlane said, adding that he sometimes pushed back on his character’s rougher edges, thinking they might be too off-putting. “I saw the movie yesterday and I thought, ‘Aaron, you are such a dick!'”Eichner agreed, noting that Bobby and Aaron are “both dicks at various points, but that’s how people are.”Stoller assured Macfarlane he was in good stead: “I remember telling you, the more flawed and real you are, the more the audience is going to root for you for figure out your shit.”Apatow, a veteran of film exploring minefield relationships and stubborn male growth (“Knocked Up,” “This is 40”), commented on the historic nature of “Bros.” “It’s a very special experience, but it starts out with Nick and Billy having this really great idea,” Apatow said.

TORONTO – Sometimes films with the best intentions just doesn’t come together. A great cast, a notable filmmaker, and fine source material don’t always coalesce.

The Inspection,” one of the festival’s opening night films and the story of a gay man who enlists in the army during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era. Director Elegance Bratton drew on his own service to craft the picture and sees it as an important corrective. “For most of our country’s history, we were forced to be silent, to suffer in silence,” Bratton told Variety.

that at the ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ press conference!” he shouted.Well, no, you didn’t. “Bros” is a pretty singular entry on the film-festival circuit this year – not because it’s about a gay relationship, but because it takes the sensibility of producer Judd Apatow and co-writer and director Stoller – whose previous movies include “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Meet Me at the Greek” and “Neighbors” – and applies them to a story that isn’t interested in trying to fit gay characters into the usual straight rom-com template.In fact, it makes fun of the whole idea of doing that in a scene early in the movie, in which Eichner’s character, Bobby, is asked to write a gay rom-com for a studio exec who’s only really interested in an edge-less movie that will show that “love is love is love.”Bobby, spewing pop-culture references and snarky putdowns with almost exactly as much zest as the guy who plays him does, begs to differ, and so does “Bros.” With a cast in which all the LGBTQ characters are played by LGBTQ actors, the film manages to make the point that, as Branum also said in the Q&A, “queer lives are different than straight lives.”The film, Eichner said, started when Stoller (“a straight man, for better or worse”) decided that his next film should be a romantic comedy about a gay couple.

The major studio romcom is back with a flourish, but it took Billy Eichner and Nicholas Stoller to prove the format still works, even if this time it is two gay men who are the ones who  find love against all odds.

TORONTO – Contrary to popular belief, there have been more gay romantic comedy movies than you might think. Many of them were released independently and a few even by the mini-majors (Searchlight, Focus Features, Sony Classics, etc).

Billy Eichner’s “Bros” just make history at the Toronto International Film Festival? It certainly felt like it. The Universal movie is breaking all kinds of barriers: It’s the first gay rom-com ever made by a major studio, the first with an all openly LGBTQ cast and Eichner is the first openly gay man to ever write and star in a studio movie. Audiences finally got to see the movie for themselves in Toronto on Friday night and, judging by the shrieks of laughter throughout the screening, it was a hit. “I want to thank TIFF for letting a comedy into a movie festival!” Eichner yelled into the audience before the film rolled, making a valid point about the dearth of studio comedies that world premiere at top international film festivals.

Deadline launched Day 1 of its photo studio at the Toronto Film Festival, as cast members of TIFF-premiering films stopped by including Nicolas Cage, from Butcher’s Crossing; Luke Macfarlane and Billy Eichner from Bros; Gabrielle Union and Jeremy Pope from The Inspection; and many more. Click on the photo above to launch the gallery. 

After three years away, the red carpet has made its return to the Toronto Film Festival. 

Manori Ravindran International Editor Billie Lourd, Colin Hanks and Aisling Bea have boarded the transatlantic comedy “And Mrs,” which is set to start shooting in east London this fall. The British feature centers on Gemma, a woman living in London (Bea) whose American fiancé Nathan (Hanks) dies shortly before their wedding day. When, with some encouragement from her sister-in-law, she decides to go ahead and marry him anyway, she has to overcome public opinion, the law of the land and even her own family’s objections. Bea is best known for “This Way Up,” “Living With Yourself” and “Doctor Who,” and will soon be headlining the much-anticipated film based on the songs of Take That, “Greatest Day.”

Billie Lourd is pregnant with her second child. The Scream Queens actress put her growing baby bump on display as she posed for photographers at the Ticket to Paradise premiere in London on Wednesday night. Billie, who attended the event alongside her husband Austen Rydell, walked the green carpet in a formfitting pink sequin dress with tulle sleeves.

Billie Lourd is pregnant, and she’s revealing the news on the red carpet!

The Trans Film Mentorship has announced that its first Trans Filmmakers Summit will take place at the Toronto Film Festival on September 11th. The summit will be held at 2 p.m. ET, following the Inside Out TIFF Queer Brunch on Malaparte’s Rooftop at TIFF Bell Lightbox.