Writer and director Nicholas Stoller, best known for romantic comedies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Five-Year Engagement, knew he wanted to make a rom-com with LGBTQ+ leads, but felt he lacked the life experience as a straight man to bring this to fruition. Luckily, he brought on comedian Billy Eichner to co-write and star in the film. Eichner has been an out gay man in Hollywood for many years and helped fill that gap in Stoller's knowledge to create a story personal to him and recognizable to many fellow gay people. Backed by comedy veterans Stoller and producer Judd Apatow, and featuring an almost entirely LGBTQ+ cast, Bros will be the blockbuster comedy the gay community deserves.

The casting in the upcoming movie is radical for their choice to cast LGBTQ actors in all roles representing their community, as well as most heterosexual characters. In an interview with the New York Times during the filming of Bros, Billy Eichner lamented that gay actors have often been barred from roles playing themselves, citing films like Brokeback Mountain, The Birdcage, and Pennsylvania. The opportunity for LGBTQ+ people to tell their own stories is an invaluable one.

Related:‘Bros’ Review: Billy Eichner’s Rom-Com Is One of the Best in Years | TIFF 2022

Billy Eichner as Bobby Lieber

Bobby on a pride parade waving at the crowd and smiling in the 2022 film Bros
Image via Universal Pictures

Comedian Billy Eichner first gained notoriety for his off-the-wall game show Billy on the Street. The series' cultural relevance has long outlasted its five-season run through internet memes and TikTok audios. Soon after, Eichner had two memorable roles on two iconic television shows, Parks and Recreation and Bob's Burgers. The actor is most recognizable for his intense energy, large stature, and gay identity that uniquely shapes his comedy. This is his first time writing a film, but he already has another project in the works. Eichner wrote the upcoming film Ex-Husbands with Paul Rudnick (Addams Family Values) for Amazon Studios.

Eichner will portray the film's protagonist, Bobby Lieber. Bobby is the chief curator of the first New York City Museum to center around LGBTQ+ history. He's grown jaded towards his love life, unable or unwilling to adapt to the current sexual revolution. Bobby wants to stay single and focus on himself and feels distant from the modern non-monogamy practiced by his friends. However, it seems Bobby is destined to find love with someone unexpectedly.

Luke Macfarlane as Aaron

Aaron, played by Luke Mcfarlane in the movie Bros
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Luke Macfarlane's first film role was Kinsey, a biopic about the eponymous sexologist who introduced the idea that sexuality exists on a spectrum to western academia and psychology. In the 2010s, he guest starred on many shows, including The CW's Beauty & the Beast and Supergirl. Last holiday season, Macfarlane appeared in the Christmas comedy Single All the Way, another film about gay men with a "queer" lead, Michael Urie. Bros is set to be another fantastic addition to a career that has continually celebrated LGBTQ+ sexualities.

Macfarlane's character Aaron is Bobby's love interest. He's suave, conventionally attractive, and a bit bro-y. This is clearly not the type of man Bobby thought he would grow old with, but love can blossom from surprising places. Bobby even complains about trying to meet men in bars, before intensely flirting with Aaron over a drink soon after. From the trailer, it seems both men will be sent on a journey of self-discovery and have to put aside their pre-disposed notions about what a relationship can be.

Brock Ciarlelli as Steve

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Actor Brock Ciarlelli might be most recognizable to fans of the sitcom The Middle, where he played Sue Heck's ex-boyfriend and gay best friend, Brad. Their relationship is mostly played for laughs, as Sue seemingly unwittingly overlooks Brad's stereotypically gay personality traits. However, in Season 7, Brad tries to come out to Sue. Sue doesn't let him finish, telling him that she knows and embracing him, resulting in one of the most heartfelt moments in the entire sitcom. Ciarlelli was also a recurring character on the short-lived Valet.

Ciarlelli's character is named Steve, though he does not appear in the trailer.

Monica Raymund as Tina

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Monica Raymund has appeared in a multitude of crime dramas in her career, including Lie To Me, The Good Wife, and a leading role in Hightown, which premiered on Starz in 2020. She also appeared in the crossover television series Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire and Chicago Med as Gabriela Dawson. Raymund has been publicly out as a bisexual since 2014 via Twitter. She has been in a relationship with camerawoman, cinematographer, and producer Tari Segal since 2015.

Tina, played by Raymund, is shown in the trailer to be a straight, married friend of Bobby's. Tina and her children can be spotted yelling "Bottom Dance!" while Bobby wishes straight people were still ignorant to the specifics of gay sex.

Guillermo Díaz as Edgar

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Guillermo Díaz gained notoriety for his role as Scarface in the stoner classic Half-Baked starring Dave Chappelle, and went on to appear alongside his co-star on Chappelle's Show. One of Díaz's first film roles was the drag queen La Miranda in the historical fiction Stonewall about the riot that started Pride. In 2019, he was a guest judge on season 11 of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Díaz is shown to play Tina's husband and the father of her children in the trailer. He previously discussed his experience being frequently typecast as a Cholo, or Mexican gangster, so this role as a family man should be a welcome departure.

Jim Rash as Robert

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Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon's TV show Community featured one of the best representations of fluid gender expression in the history of the small screen. The Dean, played by Jim Rash, steals the spotlight in every scene he's in through his earnest attraction to series protagonist Jeff Winger and his fabulous, gender-bending outfits that rival the camp and creativity of big name drag queens. Apart from his acting career, Rash is an Oscar-winning screenwriter. He was awarded the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside his writing partner Nat Faxon for their film The Descendants.

Rash plays Robert, one of Bobby's coworkers at the museum. He can be seen arguing about bisexual erasure in the trailer.

Related:Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane Talk ‘Bros’ and Shooting Two Big Scenes on the First Day of Filming

Dot-Marie Jones as Cherry

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Dot-Marie Jones is legendary for her performance of Coach Sheldon Beiste in the television show Glee. Coach Beiste is one of the few transgender men ever depicted on TV. Jones is married to a woman and has played butch lesbians on many shows and movies, such as American Horror Story: Cult, and Material Girls starring Hilary and Hailey Duff.

In the trailer, Jones argues with Jim Rash about the length of time allotted to lesbian and bisexual pride, respectively.

Ts Madison as Angela

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In 2021, Ts Madison became the first black trans woman to produce and star in her own reality show The Ts Madison Experience. Madison, a former sex-worker, appeared in the film Zola, a true story about a sex work opportunity gone wrong. She makes music as well, and has collaborated with fellow black LGBTQ+ artists RuPaul and Todrick Hall. Most recently, Beyoncé sampled one of her songs on her album Renaissance.

Madison's character, Angela, seems to be confronting Bobby in the trailer, exclaiming "What is going on with you?"

Bowen Yang as Lawrence Grape

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Bowen Yang made Saturday Night Live history as the first Chinese-American cast member and the third openly gay male in the iconic sketch comedy show's 47 seasons. According to Out magazine, Yang wrote "the gayest SNL sketch of all time", a gay porn parody featuring Emma Stone. This summer, he starred in another gay romantic comedy, Hulu and Searchlight Pictures' Fire Island, alongside Asian LGBTQ+ actors Margaret Cho and Joel Kim Booster.

Yang's character appears to be another friend of Bobby's, who tells him and Aaron they're "too old" to be shirtless in a pool at a pride party.

Eve Lindley as Tamara

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Transgender actress Eve Lindley made her first film appearance in All We Had, directed by Katie Holmes. In 2018, Lindley played one of the most iconic transgender activists of all time, Sylvia Rivera, in the short film Happy Birthday Marsha! which centered around a fictional account of the hours preceding the Stonewall Riots. She also appeared in one episode of Netflix's GLAAD Award-winning series Tales of the City in 2019, which stars fellow trans actor Elliot Page, before getting cast in a main role in the AMC drama Dispatches from Elsewhere.

Lindley's character Tamara can be seen taking selfies at a meeting while the museum board argues around her, as well as making a jab at Caitlyn Jenner.

Peter Kim as Peter

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Peter Kim is an actor most known for his roles in the television series After Forever, as well as the films The God Committee, The Forty-Year-Old Version, and Cubby.

In the trailer, Kim's character, Peter, tells Bobby he's in a "throuple" with two other men over dinner.

Guy Branum as Harry

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Guy Branum has had an impressive comedy writing career thus far, writing for recognizable TV such as MTV's millennial favorite Awkward., Chelsea Lately (where he was also a frequent panelist), and The Mindy Project. As an actor, he has appeared in the Ashton Kutcher rom-com, No Strings Attached, the HBO Max series Hacks, and Gay of Thrones, a gay Game of Thrones parody starring Jonathan Van Ness.

In the trailer, Branum's character Henry admits to Bobby that he slept with an old man that looks like Dumbledore on steroids.

Miss Lawrence as Wanda

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Miss Lawrence is a rising star in the industry, having initially started out as a makeup artist and hairstylist for The Real Housewives of Atlanta. In his move into acting, he guest-starred on the hit series Empire, before starring in the FOX series Star. He also starred in the Oscar-nominated film The United States vs. Billie Holiday where he played the role of Miss Freddy. Next up for Lawrence is Lee Daniels' horror film The Deliverance where he'll star opposite Glenn Close and Caleb McLaughlin among others.

In Bros, Lawrence will play the role of Wanda.

Bros will be released on September 30, 2022.