While Chef Gabriel serves up looks on Emily in Paris, the actor who plays him is dismissive of his growing status of—as they say in America—a snack.
Season two of the Netflix romantic comedy debuted last week and saw the return of Lucas Bravo's character, the hot neighbor and love interest of Emily, played by lead actress Lily Collins. The 33-year-old French actor made his debut on the show's first season in 2020. The part of Gabriel, partially inspired by Sex and the City's Aidan, marks Bravo's breakout role after small parts in short films and TV shows in his native France.
"I'm, like, this objectified overnight thing...I was just like a heartthrob overnight," Bravo told the U.K. newspaper The Times about his Emily in Paris-induced fame, in comments posted Tuesday, Dec. 28. "It feels a bit rushed. Too much attention for the quality of work I provided."
When asked what it's like being a "heartthrob," Bravo said, "It made me very self-aware. Because when you think about that word and the people it encapsulates, you see always a healthy, good-looking, ripped person — and I'm not that."
"I'm not," he insisted. "I'm healthy, of course, but I can be overweight."
He added, "All the little things that define who you are and make you human once you're in that [heartthrob] category are perceived like a flaw. And I don't want to be perfect. I've been working against that. In France, they don't want good-looking. They want broken faces...You can't be aesthetically beautiful and be smart or have depth. I kept getting roles like the dumb gym teacher."
Meanwhile, though Gabriel finds himself in a love triangle in the second season of Emily in Paris, his fans can rejoice, because in real life, Bravo is single. Also unlike his character, he says, "I have no game."
"I can't go up to a woman at a bar," he told The Times. "I was raised by a strong feminist figure...I would never go up to a woman without feeling that I'm disturbing her. This is the way my mum raised me. I would never let myself think that the person that I like would like me back, and it's been a problem, even in my relationships."