Lucas Bravo, The Art of Seduction
LUCAS BRAVO
THE ART OF SEDUCTION
ISSUE FORTY TWO
photography GREG SWALES executive production ALEXEY GALETSKIY local production ADRIEN SAGNIER realization STEPHANIE AROUESTY art direction PAULA PRIETO interview NATALIE ROTERMAN styling CLÉMENT LOMELLINI grooming EDUARDO BRAVO styling assistant ALIS GILBERT production assistant PAULINA TORRE location PARIS
Five years ago, the whole world fell for Lucas Bravo. Although the Nice-born actor also appeared alongside Julia Roberts and George Clooney in Ticket to Paradise, it was the Netflix series Emily in Paris that launched him internationally. Today, no one seems able to take their eyes off him.
At first glance, it’s easy to label Bravo as the perfect leading man: charismatic, down-to-earth, intelligent, and sensitive; anyone would think he’s destined to play only Romeos. But the actor is eager to find roles that push him out of his comfort zone, and when they come, he approaches them openly and imaginatively.
Roles such as Gercourt, a count he plays in HBO’s new series The Seduction, show him as the epitome of evil: a chilling, entertaining, and demanding villain to portray.
This is undoubtedly the beginning of a long Hollywood journey for Lucas, which he navigates with patience, determination, humility, and kindness.
L’BEAUTÉ HOMME You went to Law School, so how did you decide to take the leap to become an actor?
LUCAS BRAVO I didn’t decide that. I was taking improv classes since I was 14, theater and improv classes. And then I went to law school because, you know, I thought I was lacking self-confidence and I was like, oh, maybe I need to, you know, so many people want to do it. Such few people succeed at it. So why would I make it? Let’s choose the serious option, and halfway through it, I was so miserable. Law was fascinating, but just every day going to the school, it was outside of Paris and I had to take the train every day, so it really wasn’t the life I signed up for. One day, a friend invited me to come to LA, just to visit, and I went and just never left. I wasn’t studying acting there, I was just learning English. Then I went back home and started doing it seriously, went back to acting school while I was waiting tables, I started doing little commercials and looking for student films, short films so I could have enough images and videos to chase an agent. And eventually I found one and started auditioning for more serious stuff. But it took like 10 years to actually start.
And how would you say life changed after “Emily in Paris”?
Life is pretty much the same, I just have more opportunities and it’s a little more comfortable, but my parents, my surroundings, my friends and my habits are pretty much the same. Walking down the street or going to the grocery store or it’s not different. It’s okay. I just don’t think I share my life enough for people to feel invited. I like running into people that connect with my work and I love taking the time to talk to them. They’re always so respectful, which I love. But it doesn’t really get in the way of my daily habits and my daily routine. People are very respectful to me. And I’m grateful for that.
Let’s talk about the differences between playing [a heartthrob] Gabriel in “Emily in Paris” and [a villain] Gercourt in “The Seduction”.
I think when you watch “The Seduction”, you can tell that I’m having fun with it. And I’ve always believed that if it’s not fun, it’s not meant to be. The people you connect the most with, the actors you connect the most with are the ones that are actually having a blast on set. And so lately, I’ve really been focusing on that: having fun and giving fun to the audience.
For Gercourt, Jessica [Palud] , our director, was very open and she gave me full freedom to build this character. So I went left and right and big and small. And I just wanted him to be, to have a sense of danger without being too explosive or yelling. I just wanted him to be very still, like a snake that’s like staring at you and there’s always a moment where he could lose it, but you never know when.
How do you prepare for a role like that?
I always like to start from a place of love. Because when you have a judgment on your character and just think he’s such a douche, then you extract yourself from it, and you’re looking at him from an external perspective; you’re not the character anymore. So I always start from a place of love and try to understand what it is that in his mind, justifies his actions. Because people always think they’re right. There’s no manual to how to live your life, and we all do things thinking we’re right. The only thing you’re looking for in life is validation, acceptance and love. So I try to think back on where they came from; their history. Gercourt was probably a very rich kid with very absent parents who never heard the word no from anyone, in this very patriarchal society. Back then it was horrible; men could literally do anything they wanted, and women only existed if they were married to a man. So that’s why I decided to play him like he was like an old child who doesn’t understand anything that wouldn’t submit to him. I like to pick an animal and work with it, and for him I chose a hyena. Then it’s just like patterns and traumas, and trying to understand what made him the way he is. It was really fun.
And how would you say you “shake off” your characters when you leave the set?
Yeah, this one was a hard one. It’s one of the hardest that I could shake off because I wanted to go all in with him. Because I don’t think it would have worked if I just questioned my creative choices. So when I was on set, there was always tension. We would laugh a lot and we were very close with the rest of the cast. But I was also laughing with Diane Kruger and a minute later, I was supposed to strangle her. So you go home and you’re like, ‘it’s ok, I’m a good person, I’m a good guy. Everything’s good.’ But it did make me question myself at some point. Everybody on set was thrilled and fascinated, and I was satisfied too, but then I asked myself where it was all coming from, but I guess everybody has a dark side.
It’s very interesting that in both shows, you see women exercising their power in different types of ways. How did you feel that it was different?
It is different. For example, “Dangerous Liaison” was written in 1782, and it talks about love, and desire, and manipulation, and seduction, and all concepts that are pretty much the same today. They’re part of what makes life what it is, and what I like about this adaptation is that it’s for the first time, it’s a female director.
And we also go back to understand what made Merteuil who she is today, so it humanizes her. Valmont is romanticized, because in other adaptations he was just this Casanova who just wanted to manipulate young women. I think my last four projects were with female directors. And I love it because it brings a new angle. You get to shift your point of view and it brings so much more nuance to everything. It’s not black and white. Women like to go in between and make sense of people’s actions. It’s more complex and human, which makes it richer and more fun to play.
What is something that people do not know about Lucas Bravo?
There’s so much I don’t know about myself. It’s a life’s work, you know, to understand your true desire, your true purpose and what you really want and set boundaries and learn how to say no. I’m still in the search of my deeply rooted desires. But if I had to choose something funny, I just realized walking today that I am very tactical when I walk. When there are people on the sidewalk and everybody’s on a different pace and trajectory, not everybody is conscious of people around them in sidewalks, but I am. I’m always looking like four people ahead. I realized I was really good at walking and I take sidewalks seriously. I’m a fluid walker, and that’s good.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve gotten?
I think the best one wasn’t given to me but I learned it from George Clooney on the set of “Ticket to Paradise”. I realized that when he was acting, he was doing everything he could to make the person in front of him shine. Everything he would do was to support and lift his coworker. And in doing this, he would shine as well, so he taught me about selfless performances. A lot of us would come on set looking to impress everyone and say my line a certain way and get the light, my timing and everything, and his way was to make others comfortable and put them in the light, and the way that works is that it comes back to you. So that’s something I took with me.
