(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
If you see Matt Rogers sporting a mustache in 2026, Palm Royale is likely the reason.
Not only is the door left open for Maxine’s (Kristen Wiig) new best friend, Bruce (Rogers), to return to the Apple TV melodramedy, but the hot background actor’s reaction to his everyday look sans fake facial hair left an impression.
“As I was leaving, I was like, ‘It was great to meet everybody,’ and they were like, ‘Ahh‚’” Rogers tells the Daily Beast’s Obsessed, imitating their depressed reaction to learning that the mustache he has on the show wasn’t real. “What, you like me better with the mustache?’ ‘Oh, no! You’re great!’ [they said]. ‘OK, noted. I’m gonna try to squeeze one out in my real life.’”
The mustache he sports in the show might not be real, but this has been a banner year for Rogers.
As a “Reader” (one of the categories of listeners) of Rogers’ podcast, Las Culturistas with BFF Bowen Yang, I was delighted to learn that he would be on Palm Royale during his interview with Reese Witherspoon. Las Culturistas featured a parade of A-list guests—including Lady Gaga, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jennifer Lopez—and this is the first year the show’s annual Las Culturistas Culture Awards aired on Bravo.
The latter gave Rogers the chance to collaborate with his Palm Royale co-stars, including Wiig, who presented a special trophy. “Allison Janney, I briefly connected with her on set. But then at Bowen and my Culture Awards, we were able to give her the Lifetime of Cultural award,” Rogers says. Do yourself a favor and watch the incredible dance medley. The Oscars telecast wishes it could be this fun.
Rogers just wrapped an 11-date “Christmas in December” tour, so his Palm Royale guest appearance is fortuitous festive timing.
“It’ll be nice because I’ll be with my family,” he says. “I think that my dad, in particular, who was the pioneer of this type of mustache throughout my growing up, is going to want to see me rock it.” When Rogers sent his father a photo of his temporary new look while on the Palm Royale set, he got a different reaction.
“He was like, ‘You look like a porn star.’ I’m going to be able to show them that what I’m doing in the episode is not porn. It is, in fact, a comedy with some drama in there, and intrigue.”
That’s an accurate description, given the twists and turns of the previous episode that saw Wiig’s character Maxine learn she has a long-lost identical twin named Mirabelle, who was then shot dead in a case of mistaken identity.
Rogers arrives at this pivotal point in the second season; a conflicted Robert (Ricky Martin) is pulling away from Maxine as his loyalty lies with prime murder suspect Norma (Carol Burnett).
With Norma still unaccounted for by the FBI, the plan is for Maxine’s funeral to draw out the nonagenarian, who has been accused of multiple murders across the decades. Because Virginia (Amber Chardae Robinson) doesn’t know who she can trust, the circle of people who know Maxine is still alive is meant to stay small.
Tell that to Maxine, who can’t help but make new friends at the motel where she is hiding out until Norma is arrested, which is a safe haven for gay men to live openly—even if it is only temporary.
Enter Rogers as Bruce, who immediately strikes up a bond with Maxine over the secrets both can’t help but spill. Maxine struggles to remain incognito, and Bruce is in town because the famous man he is dating is attending the event of the week: Maxine’s funeral. Yep, movie star Rock Hudson is on the guest list, and all Bruce wants is to be seen.
Playing Bruce also marks a significant milestone for Rogers: “I get an email that they want me in the show. It’s actually the very first thing I didn’t have to audition for, which was so cool to feel like they really wanted me to do it.”
Rogers was already a Palm Royale fan (“If you look at the cast list, it’s literally a list of all Matt Rogers’ favorite people”) and was excited to read a part that is “a whole episode of hijinks that I get to have with Kristen’s character.”
Take, for example, the pair going to spy on Maxine’s ex, Douglas (Josh Lucas), and his pregnant new wife, Mitzi (Kaia Gerber), which leads Mitzi to think she has seen a ghost. Maxine and Bruce aren’t necessarily making the best choices, but they are instantly supportive of each other.
“It’s wackier, it’s sillier, it’s wilder, which I think audiences are craving right now, like really going for it, and Season 2 really goes for it,” says Rogers.
It was a pinch-me moment for Rogers getting to collaborate with Wiig: “I hesitate to say she’s even on my Mount Rushmore of comedy influences. She is the Statue of Liberty for me. So getting on set with her and being able to literally roll around [laughs], it was just everything.”
Given the heightened environment, it would be easy to portray Bruce as just a larger-than-life personality. But Rogers says, “What’s really interesting, because I think on paper, you have this man who’s throwing himself at a movie star, right? A lot of it is played for laughs. My character goes to great lengths to be seen by Rock and to be even in the same room as him.”
Amid hilariously running around like spies with Wiig, there is the signature Palm Royale grounded emotion.
“In performing it, you can’t help but tap into the heartbreak and how sad it is that not only is this person not being seen by the person that they love—or that they would like to be with, or at least like the time to be able to explore if it can be something—but it’s not just coming from Rock that they have to be quiet,” he says. “It’s coming from the world.”
For Rogers, there was only one way to play a dejected and defeated Bruce, and that was real: “I really love the opportunity to step into this because, while I’m so lucky to be living and dating, exploring my romantic opportunity, now in this day and age, I do know a little something about what it feels like to have to tamp that down, manage your impulses, excitement, and your own personality.”
(This conversation took place before BravoCon; I didn’t get to ask about his relationship with Chief Stew Fraser Olender. As a Below Deck fan with the surname Fraser, I am kicking myself about the missed opportunity.)
As Bruce, Rogers “felt my voice deepen a little bit” as he interacted with the forbidden nature of this romance: “It was uncomfortable. As free and as exuberant as he is when he’s in his element, you see that even that person who’s taking up all the space, and is king of this gay motel, shrinks and is like an endangered species in an environment like the Palm Royale.”
To get close to Rock at the funeral, Bruce borrows some clothes that Robert has packed for Norma. The funeral-ready black ensemble (complete with face covering veil) is Bruce’s ticket into the event, but he doesn’t factor in the FBI or that Maxine is hiding in the empty coffin.
This sequence, where Bruce enters the funeral in disguise, was Rogers’ first day of filming. The get-up proved memorable, taking style cues from a comedy legend: “After we had shot it all, I was really happy that that’s the way I met everyone, because it was an easy way to remind people who I was. Like, ‘It’s me, Carol Burnett.’ It allowed my anxiety to create an opening line when I meet everyone again.”
Spending two days in Norma’s threads also gave Rogers the perfect photo op: “I have a picture with Carol Burnett with me as Carol Burnett; that’s one for the gallery wall, for sure.”
When Norma is revealed to be Bruce, he can’t help but try to talk to Rock. Emotions spill over as Bruce tells some home truths about Nancy Reagan, the woman accompanying Rock to Maxine’s fake funeral (“Nancy, you are such an evil b---h!”). Rogers says it was “very cathartic” when Bruce yells at Nancy that she is not a real friend to Rock, which later proves to be the case during the Reagan administration’s inaction during the AIDS epidemic (and refusal to help Hudson).
“It was the past, present—and in a weird way—future, all speaking to each other, doing those scenes,” says Rogers. “I can’t lie, there was a little bit of real angst that came out of me towards Nancy Reagan in those scenes. Bruce was a vessel for me.”
While there is “a tragic element” to Bruce’s journey because he does not get the guy, Rogers was “happy that we can at least show the joy in the community” during the motel scenes. Undoubtedly, there is space for Bruce to return. “From your mouth to [creator] Abe Sylvia and Apple’s ears,” says Rogers. The perfect reason to try a mustache—fake or not.
