Lucas Bravo contemplates exit from 'Emily in Paris'
Lucas Bravo, known for his role as Gabriel in the series "Emily in Paris," is contemplating his continued involvement with the production. The actor admits that playing his character has stopped being satisfying for him.
In a conversation with IndieWire, Bravo expressed dissatisfaction with the direction his character has been developing since the series premiered on Netflix in 2020. "The ‘sexy chef’ was very much part of me in Season one and we grew apart season after season because of the choices he makes and because of the direction they make him take. I’ve never been so far away from him," the actor revealed.
Bravo noted that the character he portrays has been "constantly pitying himself" for some time. He added that Gabriel is manipulated by everyone, which has made filming the series no longer exciting for him. "In season one, there was a lot of me in him. But as they made him kind of unaware of his surroundings, of the dynamic, always victimizing and always being completely lost in translation and oblivious to anything that is happening around him and being manipulated by everyone, it kind of became not fun for me to shoot or to see a character I love so much and brought me so much, being slowly turned into guacamole," he admitted.
The actor tried to talk to the creators about his concerns regarding the role. "I tried for seasons to bring nuances but we don’t have much liberty on set. We cannot change a word or an emotion. They know what they want and we just have to comply," Bravo said.
Lucas Bravo is seriously considering his involvement in the fifth season: "It makes me question if I want to be part of Season 5 […] because my contract ends at Season 4. I really want to see if Gabriel gets back to his fun, cheeky, playful, alive self. Because three seasons playing melancholic, sad, depressed, and lost is not fun anymore. It’s a comedy, everybody is having fun around me, everybody is jumping around, and I’m just slowly sinking into god knows what," he confessed.
The actor also bravely pointed out that the creators are afraid to take risks and don't want to change the formula that made "Emily in Paris" a success. Despite the criticism, the series still holds a special significance for him. "I love the show… I love the show and the people in it. With saying that, I feel like I am not being nice or grateful, but when you love something you want it to be… you want the best version of it," he said. "I’m not going to lie, I’ve been frustrated with the direction my character is taking. But we’ll see where it goes. The show is not over," Bravo concluded.
The phenomenon of "Emily in Paris"
The first season of Emily in Paris became a big hit and ranked among Netflix's most-watched productions. The first month after its premiere, the series was watched for 58 million hours.
The latest, fourth installment of "Emily in Paris" had lower viewership numbers after splitting the season into two parts. Earlier seasons were released with ten episodes at once. According to Nielsen data, the premiere of the first part of the fourth season (August 15, Eastern Time) had only half the audience of the previous full-season premiere, registering 792 million minutes watched in the first week in the USA. Despite this, the series debuted at number one in Netflix's Global Top 10 and was listed in the Top 10 in 93 countries. The series remained on the list for four consecutive weeks.
