Ts Madison and Miss Lawrence, who both star in Bros, want major Hollywood studios to create rom-coms featuring trans leads. (YouTube/Universal Pictures)
Bros stars Ts Madison and Miss Lawrence want to see major Hollywood studios produce rom-coms focusing on trans people.
Madison and Lawrence sat down with EW to discuss the release of Billy Eichner’s Bros, which made history as the first gay rom-com from a major film studio.
Both actors believed the film and its all-LGBTQ+ cast could pave the way for more stories about trans and non-binary people being funded and created by top studios in Hollywood.
“I do think there will be moments like this, where there’s a trans story, a love story, a gender-non-binary love story that happens,” Lawrence told EW. “I think this movie serves endless opportunities for what we can become and what we will now look like in film.”
Lawrence, who portrayed Wanda in Bros, wanted to see a non-binary person or a trans woman “fall in love with a piece of trade, honey”.
The actor described how the trade “decides he tried this and [thinks he likes] it and he wants it to continue, and it turns into, how does he break this to his family] which “all turns into a comedy – especially when you’re talking about Black folk”.
Madison dreamed of seeing a trans woman on the big screen. The Drag Race guest judge even imagined herself taking centre stage like Julia Roberts, who is one of the queens of rom-coms.
“Imagine me as Julia Roberts, honey!” she said. “And my knight in shining armour pulls up in a limousine and takes me home.”
The trans icon told Mashable that she’s also ready for Hollywood to make room for other LGBTQ+ stories, especially those featuring people from the Black trans community.
“There are so many Black trans unsung voices that are out in the world that even I’m learning about,” Ts Madison said.
Madison, who played Angela in Bros, highlighted how she learned about the story of William Dorsey Swann – an enslaved person who is considered to be the drag queen, being the “first known person to dub himself a ‘queen of drag’”, and an LGBTQ+ activist – from Lawrence and was “intrigued” by Swann’s life.
She said she wanted to discover and learn more about “queer people of colour whose voices have been smothered”.
“These are things I want to know, as a person of colour,” Madison said. “Our entire history has been challenged and erased… There’s so much, so many different contributions.”
Miss Lawrence praised The Lady Chablis, a trans performer who became well-known for her iconic role in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
“She was a Black trans woman [and] her talent was just out of this world — she made that movie,” Lawrence said. “She made that movie.”
Lawrence wanted more people to know about who The Lady Chablis was as she “deserves a rightful place in our LGBTQ history-telling”.
Bros is out in theatres now.