To the world, Lucas Bravo is one of the stars of Emily in Paris. To me, he’s a blast from the past
Every high school has one. He just happened to be ours.

When Emily in Paris came out in October, it took me a couple of weeks to dive in. I’m French. Do you have any idea how exhausting that is? Whenever French culture gets discussed on the global stage, an abundance of takes ensues, and things get unmanageable faster than you can say “French people don’t actually wear berets”.

With Emily in Paris, some people complained that the show wasn’t realistic – as if Darren Star, its creator, was a storied documentarian instead of the man who gave us Sex and the City and Beverly Hills, 90210. Some Americans cringed at Emily’s behavior, while some French people cringed at the depiction of their country. Some found the series boring, or confusing, or both. The outfits were bad, we were told. Emily in Paris was bad. It was 2020, and things were bad, bad, bad.

I wasn’t going to bother watching the show. Life’s too short! There are old ER episodes waiting to be watched for the 25th time! Then, I happened upon a full cast listing, and everything changed. There, alongside Lily Collins and Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, was a name I hadn’t thought of in years, but recognised instantly: Lucas Bravo.

The name transported me back to a time of heavy backpacks, surprise quizzes, and cafeteria lunches. Secret crushes, playground gossip, dreadful PE classes. To most, Lucas Bravo is the handsome actor who plays Gabriel, Emily’s neighbor and love interest in Paris. To me, he’s my former high school heartthrob. He’s the person everyone within a 10-mile radius had a crush on. The one whose name was universally and tacitly acknowledged as the gold standard for charm.

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