Bros stars Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane on the film’s racy sex scenes

Luke Macfarlane, left, and Billy Eichner attend the premiere of Bros at AMC Lincoln Square in New York. Photo / AP

Much of the chatter about Billy Eichner’s new big-screen offering Bros has centred on the groundbreaking nature of its release: It’s “the first gay romantic comedy to premiere by a major studio”. All well and good, but this focus on its worthiness glosses over one important fact: The film is also really, really funny.

Eichner – who developed a cult following for his frequently insane quiz show Billy On The Street and the Julie Klausner cult classic series Difficult People – wrote and stars in the new Judd Apatow-produced film. He plays Bobby, a 40-year-old emotionally unavailable New York podcaster who falls for Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), an impossibly handsome musclebound “bro” who’s just as emotionally stunted, but has a hidden sweet side.

Can the pair both get out of their own way and figure out how to be vulnerable in a relationship together?

This being a rom-com, true love never runs smooth – until the requisite happy ending, of course. Along the way, Eichner skewers a lot of LGBTQ sacred cows, taking aim at everything from Queer Eye to Schitt’s Creek to gay weddings.

Some of the film’s biggest laughs come from the raunchy sex scenes, none of which are played straight (pardon the pun). Perhaps the wildest (and that’s saying something for a film with not one but two four-ways) comes early on, when Bobby and Aaron’s mutual attraction and frustration boils over into a hilariously frenzied hook-up.

McFarlane (left) and Eichner in one of the film’s racy sex scenes.

Slap-fighting, foot-sucking and even a headlock: Both actors are certainly game, and the scene was met with cheers and screams during the film’s Sydney premiere this week.

Sitting down with Eichner and Macfarlane the next day, and the pair confess with a chuckle that this was not your usual carefully choreographed sex scene.

“We did have a list of positions we thought would be funny – some of them were, some of them weren’t, and in the moment we just kind of found things. We knew if we committed 150 per cent we would get a great reaction from it … so we just went for it,” Eichner said, while Macfarlane confessed he repeatedly got into trouble for bursting into fits of giggles as they tried to film.

“I was like, ‘We can’t be laughing, we have to take it seriously so the audience will find it funny,’” Eichner said.

While the film is sure to find an appreciative audience among LGBTQ viewers, Eichner said it had also been fun to watch the reaction from heterosexual moviegoers.

“It’s fun for straight audiences, because they see things that are familiar, like texting with someone you might like and using dating apps, then there are other things that are very new and ... dare I say, educational,” he said.

“Straight people seem really interested in Grindr and poppers,” said Macfarlane (uh, google it).

With Bobby and Aaron a somewhat unlikely romantic pairing, the film lives or dies on the chemistry between Eichner and Macfarlane – and thankfully it’s palpable, both in those uproarious sex scenes and in the film’s more tender, traditional rom-com moments.

Macfarlane is well-versed at playing the romantic lead, with a dozen Hallmark TV movies under his belt. At 42, it seems Bros might just turn him into a big-screen leading man.

“We didn’t know each other before, but we understood what the dynamic needed to be,” Eichner said of his connection with his co-star.

“It was fun to make a new friend – we were discovering each other as our characters were discovering each other, which added to the spark that we needed.”

Bros is in New Zealand cinemas from Thursday, October 27.