To every Emily in Paris fan, no one could’ve formed a better love triangle than Lily Collins, Lucas Bravo, and Lucien Laviscount. But little did we know how close we came to having a different Gabriel.
Emily in Paris is a romantic comedy series, created by Sex and the City‘s Darren Star. The series premiered in 2020, and recently released season 4 in its entirety. It stars Lily Collins as Emily Cooper, a marketing executive who relocates to Paris to give her marketing firm an American point of view. Her move became permanent in season 3, when the series’ love triangle was already in place.
Emily met and fell in love with Gabriel, a chef and neighbor, in the first season, but he was already in a relationship with Camille. In season 2, she meets Lucien Laviscount’s Alfie, who becomes a main part of the major love triangle until the first half of season 4. One of the biggest selling points of the series was the chemistry and easygoing vibe between the actors but, as Bravo has revealed, he almost lost the part of Gabriel.
The studio wanted a different Gabriel for Emily in Paris
In an interview with People, Lucas Bravo revealed that after jumping through hoops and loops for Paramount, the parent company of MTV Entertainment Studios, and going through five auditions, he was eventually rejected because the studio didn’t “want to take a chance” on him because he didn’t have “enough background” as an actor. The rejection stung so much that he got out of Paris and headed to the mountains on the French island of Corsica to be alone and lick his wounds. “I wanted to be in a place where there’s no service, and I could just talk to birds, so to speak,” he said.
However, destiny intervened. Bravo explained that he ran into a hiker who asked to borrow his phone to call his daughter. As the hiker left to get service, he told him when he returned, “‘Your phone was vibrating left and right when I got service, so you should check it out.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m here to forget this Emily Paris thing,’” he explained. When he looked at the phone the next day, he had 40 messages and 30 missed calls from the casting director.
He returned to Paris, but he had no idea what was happening because as far as he knew, there was already an actor for the role. Bravo didn’t disclose the name of the actor who had “signed his contract, did a table read, [and] was about to start.” Instead, they had called him to read for Emily’s other love interests. However, for the audition, he had to read Gabriel’s lines, which he admitted was “a bit harsh” because losing the role was “still an open wound.” He did the chemistry read with two producers from Paramount, two writers, the show’s creator, Darren Star, the director, and Lily Collins, and the actor explained that “It felt like an… interrogation.”
Things started improving once he started reading with Collins, noting that “it went super well.” He explains, “Lily is very generous. When you dive into her eyes, it’s really easy to be connected to her.” He explained that he was so nervous and “uncomfortable” when the team asked where he’d been, that “I talked about goat cheese for 10 minutes.” Luckily, he had already impressed the show’s creator, who “fought” for him and “went against the studio,” casting Lucas Bravo as Gabriel.
Emily and Gabriel’s relationship struggled over the four seasons, and briefly became official for a few episodes in season 4. However, it’s the ease between Collins and Bravo that made the pairing a success, and the show could’ve been completely differently had a different actor nabbed the part of the dashing chef. Luckily for us, that didn’t happen, and we got Bravo as Gabriel, as the universe — and Darren Star — intended.
Published: Sep 19, 2024 07:21 pm