Battle of the bros: Mrs. Fletcher star Jackson White says Brendan would ‘pour beer on’ Euphoria’s Nate Jacobs at a frat party
For the love of Kathryn Hahn, never give Mrs. Fletcher’s Brendan your Snapchat.
Brendan is the spaced-out son in HBO’s dramedy series from creator Tom Perrotta, who also wrote the 2017 New York Times best-selling novel of the same name. The story follows Hahn’s Eve Fletcher, a divorced senior center employee who has a sexual reawakening after she makes searching porn sites her new hobby. Meanwhile, Brendan (played by Jackson White) just moved out and immediately became a wannabe college frat boy who stops at nothing to try to get in bed with the next girl he sees. Even if that means sending unsolicited late-night pics.
Which sounds a lot like a move from the playbook of a troubled youth on another recent HBO series: Euphoria‘s jerk-of-the-year Nate Jacobs, played by Jacob Elordi. So we just had to ask White what he thinks would happen if Brendan and Nate were to ever see each other on frat row.
“Brendan and Nate at a frat party. That’s funny. You know, they’d probably just hug shirtless and pour beer on each other. Maybe they’d share a joint after,” White, who asked EW to specifically add the fact that he was moisturizing his face during this interview, says.
“Unless there’s a girl involved,” he clarifies. “I met Jacob Elordi one time at a pool party. And he’s a big motherf—er. Maybe I could outrun him?”
Brendan may not want to face Nate Jacobs, but the character does have to confront his own issues of being overly dependant on his mother to take care of everything. He moved into his dorm on time only because Eve packed everything for him. Eve even had to tell Brendan to be nice to women.
“He’s super unexamined. He’s really unaware of how blank he becomes and how that affects the people around him,” White says.
And similar to Nate’s downward spiral on Euphoria, heading into episode 3, things won’t always go Brendan’s way anymore, White reveals.
In episode 2, Brendan tries to sign up for a club at a fair after his advisory told him it would be a good idea. He turns the opportunity into his own Tinder session, swiping left or right at the girls repping those groups. Brendan eyes Chloe (Jasmine Cephas Jones) who leads an autism awareness group.
White says we will see Brendan attending an autism support session in the coming episode, an experience that will prove challenging for him.
“Things start to shift. We see how Brendan is trying to adjust to college. We see him trying to branch out and make some friends, explore his options, all under the umbrella of wanting to get laid and look cool,” White says. “He goes to an autism awareness club. We see him have a really hard time with the language. We see him have a hard time connecting.”
Mrs. Fletcher airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on HBO.
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