Emily Cooper Is Now A 'Little More French': Lily Collins

At the end of its second season in December 2021, fans of Emily In Paris, Netflix’s most-watched new comedy show when it debuted in 2020, were divided into two camps: Team Gabriel and Team Alfie. These were the two competing love interests for protagonist Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), an American marketing executive who is transferred from Chicago to Paris, where she finds herself both charmed and perplexed by the locals.

In Season 3, which premiered on Dec 21, Emily arrives at a crossroads both professionally and romantically, forced to choose between her American boss Madeline (Kate Walsh) and her French one Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu).

Her romantic life is even more complicated, with new fling Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) sweeping her off her feet even though her feelings for her neighbour Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) – who has reunited with his girlfriend and her pal Camille (Camille Razat) – still run deep.

At a screening in New York for the new season of the show – which was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys in 2021 – Collins teases “a lot of twists and turns”. She promises that her character “will pick a lane”, but that does not mean things will be smooth sailing moving forward.

“Emily has to focus on one thing at a time now, and I admire that she’s finally making some decisions. But the second she picks a lane, it all gets messed up,” says the 33-year-old. “There are a lot of love triangles. There are just a lot of choices this season,” adds the British-American actress, who is married to American director-screenwriter Charlie McDowell, 39. 

And after Emily makes some critical decisions, “it really becomes a bit of a roller coaster – it goes up and down and then the last episode happens and everything hits the fan”. In the finale, “you think you know what’s going to happen, and then it all just changes”, Collins says.

On the positive side, Emily continues to mature and grow – especially compared with Season 1, which came under fire for the character’s ignorance of the French language and culture, and for rehashing old cliches and stereotypes about France.

“She’s quietly confident this season in a way that I don’t think she allowed herself to be in Seasons 1 and 2,” says Collins. “And she’s a little more French. She learns a little more of the language and she’s more grounded within her environment.”

The star’s own knowledge of the French language and culture is improving as well. “I’m starting to dream in it again. I used to dream in French when I was a kid because I was more fluent then,” says Collins, who is the daughter of English singer Phil Collins and his second wife Jill Tavelman, an American socialite. “And now it’s starting to come back.”

This season of Emily In Paris, which has been renewed for a fourth, also explores more of the supporting characters’ lives, along with “more fashion and more female friendships”, she says. “I’m really proud that it gets to showcase and celebrate the other actors and their storylines a lot more, which I was really happy about.”

The trailer for this instalment also reveals another hard decision for Emily: She decides to take a pair of scissors to her tresses and cut a fringe for herself. Collins says this was something she had decided to do herself, but that producers of the show – including creator Darren Star of Sex And The City (1998 to 2004) fame – fully supported it.

“I wanted to do bangs forever and I finally took the plunge. And then they asked if I wanted to keep it for the show, and I said, ‘Of course I do.’ I feel like it’s a life decision that Emily is now making for herself. And as a woman, when I feel like my life has changed in some way or I’m in a new phase, I change my hair,” Collins explains.

“So it felt very appropriate for Emily.”

This article first appeared in The Straits Times