13 Reasons Why alum Brandon Flynn, who portrayed Justin Foley through all four seasons of the hit Netflix series, has a new partnership with Bubly speaking water, which has released a heartwarming short film in honor of Pride Month. Recently, Foley sat down with PopCulture.com to talk about the project, speaking with us virtually from New York City’s iconic Stonewall Inn. During the interview, Flynn discussed Coming Home, a short film that Bubly explained: “Spotlights the importance of safe spaces as a place for chosen families to form & flourish.”
“It’s a film about coming home paired with Muna’s music,” Flynn shared, adding that it stars Muna band member Naomi McPherson as well as drag queens Eureka O’Hara (Ru Paul’s Drag Race) and Tony Soto. “It’s tracking this non-binary character, Jack, who is sort of finding their way into a safe space and collective community that is really highlighting chosen family,” Flynn continued, “which I think given the state of the world right now, given my own prior experiences, chosen family is incredibly important and vital. And I think I was drawn to the campaign just in gratitude to highlight that.”
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In addition to the short film, Bubly has also announced the company “will also be donating $100,000 to the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI) to help support the organization’s ongoing efforts to support and certify LGBTQ+ venues as official safe spaces and providing grants to individual safe spaces across the country in need of assistance.” Noting the importance of this initiative, Flynn explained, “I’d be remiss to not mention that they’re like providing this money to spaces that are in places like Grand Rapids, Michigan, and like Jacksonville, Florida, which are very specific spaces that don’t necessarily provide a ton of these homes that people on the coast have really come to be reliant on. So I think that’s incredibly important and I think sets an example for what, what needs to happen on a grander scale for peace of mind and for safety.”
Flynn not only discussed his Bubly partnership and all the work they’re doing, he also discussed his past Netflix roles, both 13 Reasons Why and the Ryan Murphy-created . Speaking about Ratched and his character Henry Osgood, Flynn said, “I’m just an excited actor that likes to work, but definitely I was drawn to being a part of the Ryan Murphy world, working with this gay sort of empire that he’s created. I think the character, I was very lucky to play someone so different because I think I got to just experience like, ‘Okay, yeah, this is like what a range can be and how I can play into it.’”
Comparing Henry to his 13 Reasons Why role, Justin, Flynn offered, “At the end of the day, it was just really fun to play Henry like really, really fun. You know, I’m much more like Justin, in many ways, but Henry was this devious sort of desperate figure. I mean, they had similarities, they both were desperate to be loved. They just went about it in two different ways.”
Finally, opening up about how he reflects on , two years after its conclusion, Flynn admitted, “I think the feelings are still extremely similar. I mean, in many ways it wasn’t that long ago, you know.” He added, “I just feel immense gratitude for being able to be a part of that. It doesn’t bother me that people were frightened by it or whichever words they would use. There’s enough love for it. That makes me conscious and truly believe that it changed a lot of people’s lives and perspectives. And I hope that it sticks around in sort of the Pantheon of shows that were able to do that.”
