The ‘Emily in Paris’ star recalls his audition process for the Netflix show in a conversation with PEOPLE in 10

Lucas Bravo wasn’t originally cast as one of Emily Cooper’s love interests in Emily in Paris.

The actor, who plays Gabriel — one-third of the titular character’s never-ending love triangle in the Netflix series — exclusively explains during a PEOPLE in 10 interview that he wasn’t initially cast as the French chef.

Bravo, 36, reveals to PEOPLE that after he was initially passed on, he headed to the mountains on the French island of Corsica. But while on his getaway, he learned of the production’s change of heart.

Bravo went through five auditions over several months but didn’t land the role. He notes that Paramount (the parent company of series studio MTV Entertainment Studios) didn’t “want to take a chance on” him because he didn’t have “enough background.” This prompted his brief escape to the Mediterranean island. “I wanted to be in a place where there’s no service, and I could just talk to birds, so to speak,” he said.

But his trip was cut short and concluded by something “very weird.”

“A hiker came by and he was like, ‘Can I borrow your phone? I really need to call my daughter,’ ” he says before clarifying that there’s only cell service about a 40-minute walk away and on top of a big rock. “I gave him my phone, he left, never came back,” he continues.

“He told me, ‘Your phone was vibrating left and right when I got service, so you should check it out.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m here to forget this Emily Paris thing,’ ” he adds.

“And in the morning, I woke up like, ‘I should take a look at it,’ ” he recalls, before revealing he discovered he had 40 messages and 30 missed calls. “It was the casting director telling me, ‘Where are you?’ “

He promptly returned to Paris but wasn’t sure what was going on because “the official Gabriel had signed his contract, did a table read, [and] was about to start.” He then learned that he would be reading for Emily’s other love interests.

However, he still had to read Gabriel’s lines during auditions for other roles, which he remarks was “a bit harsh” because it was “still an open wound.” He obliged and proceeded with the chemistry read in a room with two producers from Paramount, two writers, creator Darren Star, the director, and Lily Collins.

He arrived in the room alone, and “it was like a house circle table,” Bravo says. “It felt like an… interrogation.”

Once he and Collins, 35, were reading together, he tells PEOPLE that “it went super well.” He explains, “Lily is very generous. When you dive into her eyes, it’s really easy to be connected to her.”

The team asked about his whereabouts when they tried to contact him.

“I was like, ‘I was in the mountain with this shepherd making goat cheese,’ and I was so uncomfortable I talked about goat cheese for 10 minutes,” Bravo says. “When I left the room, and I closed the door, I was like, ‘I can’t believe I just talked about goat cheese. You’re never going to get that part.’ “

Despite his concerns, he was called the next day and immediately asked: “Are you sitting?” before being told, “Okay, you are starting in two days.”

He reveals that Starr “fought” for him, because he “thought [Bravo] was the part from the beginning,” noting that the Emily in Paris creator “went against the studio.”