Love can be confounding. It can be surprising and elusive; there’s no guidebook. That’s one reason why we devour romantic comedies: They’re funny but neat stories about how people get together, a process that’s terrifyingly vulnerable in real life.
For Keiynan Lonsdale, best known for playing romantic lead Bram in 2018’s tender high-school romance Love, Simon, the genre has been professionally but also personally significant.
The 30-year-old Australian actor brought warmth and candor to the role that originally made him a star but the popular rom-com helped him unearth some of his own truths.“I want to learn from them,” he told me over Zoom, referring the genre he knows he’ll forever be associated with thanks to that breakout role. “I want to see what’s possible.
I want to see what to avoid. I want to see what’s okay to laugh about in the situation. Rom-coms present us crazy, stressful situations and they teach us how to laugh and say, ‘Oh, whatever, Drew Barrymore went through it so it's fine.’”Keiynan Lonsdale and Dylan Sprouse in My Fake Boyfriend.In My Fake Boyfriend, a BuzzFeed Studios movie, Lonsdale extends his reign as a rom-com lead, offering a familiar portrayal of queer dating.