Dreams really can come true, even for the most cynical. Just ask Guy Branum. Once an aspiring law student and small-stage stand-up comedian, he is now one of the stars of the hit 2022 Queer rom-com Bros.
Paving the way
While comedy was a fun pastime for Branum in his late twenties, he didn't see himself pursuing a career in the field at first. "I just thought it was going to be a hobby that I did while I practiced law," he said. "I went to law school, passed the bar, and worked a couple of legal jobs. I didn't see it as a possible career until a couple of years into it."
One of the reasons Branum couldn't see himself in the spotlight was because of his sexuality. "It's hard. There is not a rich tradition of successful Gay male stand-ups older than I am," he explained. "There were Gay male stand-ups that came before me, and I have so much respect for them, but there wasn't a whole lot of success to go around."
Twenty years ago, when he started his career in comedy, audiences were much less friendly to LGBTQ+ performers. "Straight cis guys aren't used to having to listen to women or people from the LGBTQ+ community. They are used to us being the butt of jokes, not the people whose perspectives are informing the jokes," he said.
Branum started his career in San Francisco, the most LGBTQ+-friendly city in the United States. Once he began performing outside the Bay Area, he began to notice most audiences were less accepting of Queer comedians.
"San Francisco is a town that really [has] a rich Queer performance community. I didn't notice that until I got to Los Angeles," he said. "Stand-up is such an unstructured discipline, and so many of the opportunities come through the worship of more established comics. If there aren't more established comics like you, there's no one to take you on the road, there's no one to say, 'Hey, do you want to open for me?' So that was rough, but it also meant I had to forge my [own] path."
Branum became a pioneer for LGBTQ+ comedians, forging a path not only for himself but for many who would come after him. He developed his sharp sense of humor, which he describes as "angry and yelling."
"I figured out pretty quickly how to make audiences push past that and be able to have a good time with me, but being able to make the industry understand that there was a place for me and a role for me was hard," he said. "So much of the time I've had to do the work to prove myself five or six times where, say, a lot of straight cis guys have been able to do the work once and be trusted that they can do the work again."
He put in the extra work and honed his sets in small San Francisco venues he knew would be accepting of his identity. "The first time I ever did stand-up was at the Café du Nord, a little coffeehouse in San Francisco. There was a place called the Marsh, also in San Francisco. The Improv Comedy Club was the first comedy club I performed at. It was mostly things in San Francisco. One of my first times landing sets was Russian River, a Gay resort in the North Bay," he said.
While he performs on much bigger stages now, like Seattle's the Here-After, Branum still has a soft spot for his first stage and says it is still one of his all-time favorite venues. "The Café du Nord... is a little speakeasy that's underground. I remember the first time I performed there it felt so cool. I was so impressed by it."
From screens to backyards
Most of his performances today are on screen, either in movies like Bros and No Strings Attached or on his talk show, Talk Show the Game Show , but he always enjoys spontaneous pop-up shows.
"I also like the weird, strange situations where I've been expected to do stand-up. There's a really rich culture of backyard shows in Los Angeles now. It's so much fun to show up to some random backyard where people have strung up lights and put up folding chairs and have it be a wonderful comedy situation full of a great audience," he said.
In the twenty years since Branum first took the stage in San Francisco, his style has grown beyond anger and yelling. "It has evolved. It used to be angrier and yelling-er. Now I understand how to be quiet and not always be on the attack."
Years of experience and good mentors have given Branum more confidence to be himself on stage. "When you're first starting, you're scared that something could go awry. Now, I've had things go awry enough that I understand how to get out of it. I don't necessarily feel the same need to assert dominance over the audience in the same way."
Working with his heroes
As a writer, Branum has rubbed elbows with his idols, who have challenged him to expand on his skills. "I learned so much from working for Mindy Kaling," he gushed. "She's so good at what she does. She holds the people around her to such a high standard that I always enjoyed working with her. I also treasure so much that she is somebody who is still in my life.
"Also, Joan Rivers was someone I worshiped when I was a child, and the fact that I got to spend a year or so working for her meant so much. And seeing someone who, in her eighties, was still as sharp and capable as she was impressive."
Branum also admires many LGBTQ+ comedians who helped encourage public acceptance of queerness and opened doors for more performers like him. "I look up to Wanda Sykes [and] Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall so much," he said. Branum was once just a fan of Sykes; now he works closely with her. Sykes even produced his talk show.
Today, Branum's favorite comedians are people he gets to work with. "I love Margaret Cho. I am so proud of her as a Bay Area comedian. People who are my colleagues but have been doing this a lot longer than I have, like Laurie Kilmartin and Jackie Kashian. They are the two stand-up comedians I respect the most, probably. They are amazing craftspersons with a perspective and spirit that infuses all of their jokes. They have so much experience that their jokes are battle tested and strong in a way that isn't always true in Los Angeles."
Branum talks Bros
One of his favorite comedians to work with is Billy Eichner, who hand-picked Branum for a role in the nearly all-Queer film Bros. "He is the best writing boss I have ever had. He does the best job of making you feel loved for the jokes that he rejects," Branum said.
"I had worked for him on Billy on the Street, and he asked me to read at the table read. I didn't even audition. They just gave it to me. He also asked me to be a co-producer and write jokes on the set."
With so many talented comedians working on the set, funny lines tended to flow. "I improvised some lines," he said. "I don't know if any of them made it into the movie. One of them did. It's a Judd Apatow movie, everyone felt a lot of freedom to improvise."
Despite the improvisational freedom provided by producer Judd Apatow, Branum admitted that coming up with jokes on the spot is not his forte. "Well, I'm a television writer most of the time, and I'm used to sticking to the script, so I'm not used to being as loose and ready for it like some gifted improvisers, like Jim Rash."
He did, however, put his personality into his character in Bros. "One time, Nick, the director, was kind of making fun of me and was like, 'Hey, this time do it as Henry, not as Guy, as Henry,' emphasizing the fact that there isn't a huge amount of difference between Henry as a character and Guy as a character. Good stand-up comics understand how to find themselves in a character."
Working with so many members of the LGBTQ+ community made the environment on the set of Bros especially welcoming for Branum. "It was lovely. It was nice to feel supported and like we didn't have to be the sole representative of [the LGBTQ] community and to let everybody else know that their perspectives and sensibilities were understood and there was space for that."
Branum said he felt welcomed by the allies that worked on the set as well. "The straight guys who helped get this movie made, Judd Apatow, Nick Stoller, and our producer Josh Church, did such a great job of listening to everyone and being respectful that they were telling a story that wasn't their story."
The movie set also felt special to Branum, because it was one of his first times back to work since the start of the pandemic. "For most of us, it was our first time being around that many people after a year and a half of lockdown. It was really exciting. You see those moments where the whole cast is dancing at the museum scene at the end, and it was really fun to have moments like that in a group in a way that hadn't been possible for a long time."
Bros is in theaters now. The movie has been praised by fans and critics alike, and already has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Branum says he hopes viewers leave the theater with "that lovely feeling after you've laughed hard for two hours. I just want people to enjoy the movie. It's so fun, so funny. I'm just really proud of it."
He also hopes fans feel "an abiding and irrepressible sexual attraction to me. I hope everyone, man, woman, Nonbinary, is just sort of saying, 'Dammit, I gotta get things going with that Guy Branum.' But only adults."
A more open place for LGBTQ+ comedy
Branum's career has spanned decades, and because of the work he and many other LGBTQ+ comedians put in, the world is a much more open place for Queer comedians. However, he recognizes that despite his work, Queer comedians still face more hurdles than their cis and straight counterparts.
"It is easier now. It doesn't mean it is easy now; it means they understand a path for you to get to the middle. But they still don't understand a path for you to be [at the top]," he said. "You know, they didn't understand a path for a Black woman to be the biggest name in comedy until very recently. Tiffany Haddish changed the way people see things. Bowen Yang is changing the way people see things. It's going to take more work, but at least now not everybody is having to invent the whole thing from the beginning."
Despite the added struggle LGBTQ+ comedians may face in the industry, Branum advises those with a passion for the art to keep going. "Do the thing you love. The more love you can put into the work you do, the more rewarding it will be," he said.