‘Emily in Paris’ gave actor Lucas Bravo his big break

“Something crazy happened to me the other day,” Lucas Bravo says as he sits al fresco at Swingers, the diner that’s a longtime staple along Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood, on a sticky August day.  He explains it was about 5 am and he was jetlagged after travelling to LA from Paris, where he lives, to promote the new season of “Emily in Paris.” Unable to sleep, Bravo linked up with a friend and drove to a beach, where he was approached with an unusual request. 

“As we park, a Range Rover pulls up and this woman is like, ‘Hey, are you doing anything?’” Bravo recalls. “She was like, ‘Listen, if you have 10 minutes, I’ll give you money so you can serve someone [legal papers]. Basically, it’s for custody of my kids; I’m in the middle of a divorce and these are papers to serve to my mother-in-law.’”

“I’m a people pleaser,” he continues, “so I’m like, how do I get out of this? And I’m an Aries, so I jump in the pool and then I learn how to swim. But, also, I mean, I don’t want to serve a grandmother. My friend got me out of it. But what if I was alone? I probably would have done it.”

This is what it’s like, getting lost in the tales of a French guy who’s in Los Angeles. But, for the record, his alter ego may still have the edge on experiencing surprising and dramatic life moments.  Netflix’s frothy series began as a fish-out-of-water story about a bright-eyed American marketing executive living in Paris, and Bravo eventually emerged as the show’s swoon-worthy leading man playing Gabriel, the chef with a heart of gold who ends up in a divisive love triangle with Emily (Lily Collins). Being a show that comes from the mind of Darren Star, a master at crafting messy relationships, it was only a matter of time before things got très compliqué.

After getting his professional life on track — opening a restaurant and devoting himself to earning a Michelin star — Gabriel’s personal life goes off the rails when his last-minute wedding to on-again, off-again girlfriend Camille (Camille Razat) is called off because of his feelings for Emily.

But wait, Camille is pregnant? Not so fast. Part 1 of the fourth season, which was released last month, finally saw Gabriel and Emily rekindle their romance just as his chance at a coveted Michelin star implodes. And Camille? Well, it turns out she isn’t pregnant after all — but she’s withholding the news from Gabriel.

Bravo is coy about the second half of the season, now streaming, offering chuckles that signal his character’s roller-coaster journey is bracing for another drop. “Darren knows how to bring the chaos,” he says.  Still, even Bravo was surprised by recent story developments, particularly Camille’s pregnancy. “I was like, ‘Wow, it’s a big shift. This might be my cue,’” he says, jokingly implying the uncertain fate he thought it held for his character. But Bravo came into the fourth season appreciating the relief his character would get from the scrapped wedding and the other curve balls that knocked Gabriel off course.

“I’m a simple person,” he says. “I don’t think I can handle that pressure on a daily basis. [Gabriel’s] the same. So, there’s this big, big, big relief. I don’t know how he’s gonna take the baby news because he seems very pumped, to say the least.”

The notion of being freed from expectations is something Bravo knows well. It’s what’s brought us to Swingers — and why this story isn’t about a lawyer.  At 18, after his first semester at law school, he joined a friend for a quick getaway to LA. He crashed at the West Hollywood home of a friend’s father, the filmmaker Jean-Christophe “Pitof” Comar, director of 2003’s “Catwoman.” His “first taste of America,” as he tells it, involved spending much of that week on a loop, walking to the Grove, LA’s outdoor shopping hub, and grabbing a Red Bull and a pack of Parliament cigarettes.

Tribune News Service