What You Didn't Know About Netflix's Emily In Paris

Netflix dropped the second season of "Emily in Paris" on December 22, 2021, just 14 months after the first season premiered. When American marketing executive Emily Cooper is sent to work in Paris for a year, she finds herself immediately caught up in a love triangle between her attractive neighbor Gabriel and her new friend Camille, who just happens to be Gabriel's girlfriend. Comedy and drama ensue as Emily muddles her way through this new world in Paris — without being able to speak the language, of course.

The first season was streamed by 58 million households around the world in its first 28 days, making "Emily in Paris" Netflix's most popular comedy series of 2020, per Netflix. "The fact that Emily in Paris made people laugh and smile during a time when we all needed it the most, that's when you get the most out of your art and your craft and what it is that we do, so that's, what an honor," said star Lily Collins.

Despite its popularity, "Emily in Paris" was also criticized, mainly by French people who claimed the show was not indicative of the traditional Parisian lifestyle. There were also accusations about the show's lack of diversity in the first season, with Chatelaine calling "Emily in Paris" "extremely white." However, Season 2 attempted to address these issues, while also bringing more drama to the screen. Did it work? Let's dive into all the behind-the-scenes gossip of one of Netflix's hottest comedies.

When bubbly American Emily Cooper, played by Lily Collins, is unexpectedly sent to work in France for a year, she only knows a handful of words in the country's language. All alone and struggling to adjust to a new city, Emily meets fellow foreigner and her soon-to-be bestie, Mindy Chen (Ashley Park). Unlike Emily, Mindy speaks French fluently and helps her navigate the city. However, the pair's roles are reversed off-screen, as Collins is fluent in the language of love, but it isn't Park's forte.

Growing up with French-speaking half-brothers, Collins had plenty of opportunities to practice her French. "I grew up speaking French in school," she revealed during the "Emily in Paris" Netflix Afterparty (via Twitter). "I started dreaming in it and reading it." When she joined the cast of "Emily in Paris," the actor was initially excited to put her French skills to use — before she discovered Emily wouldn't be speaking French, that is.

While Collins' off-screen French skills put Emily Cooper to shame, Ashley Park isn't as fluent as her on-screen counterpart might suggest. Park admitted that she doesn't know the language well, even after six years of French lessons when she was growing up. It's safe to say she does a pretty good job of faking it and singing in French in the series, though.

Darren Star's inspiration for "Emily in Paris" came from a backpacking trip the writer-producer took in his late teens. "I fell in love with it the first time I visited," he recalled to the Los Angeles Times. The series creator explained that he had the idea for the show — which sees American expat Emily Cooper move to Paris — years ago, but before pitching the series, he decided to test the waters himself. "I knew I was going to write this show, and I was like, 'I need to just see some of the daily things,'" he explained. Like Emily, Star went to French classes and enjoyed (and struggled with) all that French culture had to offer.

Emily Cooper is meant to be an outsider in Paris, so in order to portray an authentic experience for Lily Collins' character, Star decided that the entire team should experience living in Paris, too. Many of the "Emily in Paris" storylines were planned in advance, but all the actual writing happened in Paris, Star revealed to Glamour. "I knew it would inform their writing since some of the writers hadn't experienced Paris," he explained. "This way, it would help them mirror the experience of Emily and find the nuances and reality of the situation."

"Emily in Paris" has an A-List cast, with some familiar faces. Fans will no doubt recognize star Lily Collins, daughter of '80s rock star Phil Collins, from her role in "Love, Rosie," as well as the BBC miniseries "Les Misérables." Ashley Park, who plays Emily's best pal Mindy Chen, has had numerous roles in Broadway productions, including "Lady in the Dark." French actor William Abadie, who plays Paris local Antoine Lambert, is recognizable from his appearances in "Gossip Girl" as Blair's stepfather Roman, and eagle-eyed fans might also know that Abadie has worked with Darren Star before — he briefly appeared in a 2003 episode of "Sex and the City."

The show's newest addition, British actor Lucien Laviscount, best known for "Coronation Street," "Celebrity Big Brother," and "Scream Queens," joined "Emily in Paris" for Season 2. He said he felt very welcomed by the cast and immediately fell in love with the city. "Paris is like a museum with the roof taken off, it really is a beautiful place, and I was so fortunate to be there and working," he told Heart. "It was magical from the beginning to end."

Kate Walsh also has a bigger role in the show's second season. She's a household name for "Grey's Anatomy" fans, having played Dr. Addison Montgomery on the medical drama, and its spinoff "Private Practice," since 2005. Fans might also know her from "13 Reasons Why" and "The Umbrella Academy."

Lucas Bravo plays hot chef Gabriel, who just happens to be Emily's next-door neighbor — and love interest. "Emily in Paris" is a dream role for Bravo, but Darren Star admitted he did put him through an extremely long audition process. "I wanted to see Lily [Collins] and him read together," he explained to Glamour. "Once I saw that, I think we all knew. The chemistry was there." "Emily in Paris" viewers would surely agree, too.

Before joining the comedy-drama, the French star had bagged credits in several short films and the French TV series "Sous le Soleil de Saint-Tropez," but he also had a Gabriel-esque side career. "I was a sous-chef in a restaurant," Bravo revealed to Vulture. "I have some cooking skills." He also shared that he learned "amazing techniques and ways to recycle everything you're not using" while on the job. Looks like art really does imitate life sometimes.

However, Bravo admitted his skills aren't up to par with his character's. "We did some kind of cook-off competition with me and Ashley [Park] to promote the show, and I completely burned my omelet and cut my finger off, so I'm trying not to brag about my cooking skills anymore," he explained. This seems to have just been nerves getting in the way, however, and it hasn't put Bravo off cooking. "I ... did the omelet in the kitchen scene," he recalled. "Luckily, that one was a success."

In "Emily in Paris," Ashley Park plays Emily Cooper's [Lily Collins] bestie — business major-turned-au pair-turned singer, Mindy Chen. However, it turns out Park is actually responsible for giving Mindy one of her biggest character traits. Mindy's love of singing comes directly from Park's Broadway background. The actor and singer has notably starred in "Mean Girls" and "The King and I," and Darren Star couldn't help but want to bring her theater talent to the small screen.

"I had no idea that when I was cast that Mindy would even sing," Park revealed to Vogue. But once she was cast, the "collaborative" process of creating Mindy's character began, per Town & Country. "I felt so taken care of the whole time, and watching the scenes back, the way that they're shot, and the way that they captured certain parts of Mindy and of me, I'm just so moved by them," she explained. Park, who is used to performing live on Broadway, said being able to watch her performances of "La Vie en Rose" and "Chandelier" over and over again made this experience even more special.

Darren Star has created several long-running television series, but none more iconic than "Sex and the City." Eagle-eyed "SATC" fans quickly pointed out that Star's latest creation, "Emily in Paris," has a lot of similarities to the infamous series. As it turns out, those similarities weren't purely coincidence. Star put a ton of "SATC" Easter eggs in the Netflix comedy on purpose, from similar wardrobe styling — like the tutu Emily sports, which is like the one Carrie Bradshaw wears in the opening credits of "SATC" – to more subtle nods in the form of Emily's monogrammed hoop earrings.

Emily's camera phone is another of the show's staples that was inspired by Carrie Bradshaw, Lily Collins revealed. "Emily is really obvious, so wearing a big camera around her neck says it all. It's not just another phone case. That was Emily's ode to Carrie," she revealed to Glamour.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Collins explained she believes Emily would be completely inspired by "SATC." "I think Emily is a huge 'Sex and the City' fan. She would be thinking about the episode when Carrie Bradshaw goes to Paris ... she probably thought, 'OK, if I'm going to go to Paris what would Carrie do?'" This is something Darren Star was said he thought about while writing the series. For him, "Emily in Paris" was his "payback" moment from missing Paris with the "SATC" cast back in 2004.

Another big nod to "Sex and the City" comes through the show's costume designer, Patricia Field, who followed Darren Star to "Emily in Paris." Creating this kind of wardrobe — Paris chic for an American — is something Field has always wanted to do. "On 'Sex and the City,' Carrie went to Paris. And I've always had this — I don't know — I guess, fantasy about Paris," Field explained to Paper Magazine. Field loves that she has been able to showcase Emily's fashion transformation as she settles into her life in France, too. "She was still an American girl" who loves to wear bright colors, but her wardrobe has matured, Field noted.

The outfits got even better in Season 2, at least according to Lily Collins. "There is one outfit in particular and I cannot say that this is the most French [outfit I've worn] but [when] Madeline (Wheeler), when my boss comes into town she says, 'Wow, you've really stepped up your fashion game,'" Collins explained to Vogue India.

Thanks to Netflix, "Emily in Paris" has reached viewers across the globe. While most have become fans of the show, there's one group of people who are less than keen on it. French people reportedly don't love the series, as seen by the review French critic Charles Martin wrote for Premiere. Paraphrased from French, Martin penned that, throughout the show, viewers learn that the French are all bad. He expressed that Darren Star and his writers seemed to lean into all of the clichés attributed to French people, including (paraphrased from French), that the French are lazy, sexist, backward, unfaithful, and have a questionable relationship with their shower.

All in all, Martin wrote that, although "Emily in Paris" wasn't the most flattering look at Parisians, Lily Collins' turn as the lead gave it a freshness that made the show easily digestible and a fun watch, a sentiment that appears to be shared by many other French people. As The New York Times reported, the French loved to refer to "Emily in Paris" as "ridicule," a word meaning both "ridiculous and absurd, as well as comical and amusing."

At the same time critics pointed out the show's caricature-like portrayal of the French, "Emily in Paris" also faced criticism for its lack of diversity. "It's Emily's world — and that world is extremely white," Katherine Singh wrote for Canadian fashion magazine, Flare. The series has a "big representation problem," she added.

Lily Collins, who produces and stars in the series, addressed the criticism about the show's diversity problem and said they had taken it on board. "After season one, hearing people's thoughts, concerns, questions, likes, dislikes, just feelings about it, there were certain things that spoke to the time that we're living in and what's right, and moral and correct and should be done," she explained to Elle.

In a subsequent interview with Elle, Collins revealed that while writing and filming Season 2, the cast and crew really put a focus on diversity and inclusion "behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera." A few days later, Collin's co-star Ashley Park addressed diversity concerns regarding her character, Mindy Chen. Park noted how excited she was to "really flesh out" her character, which she said was a big part of having representation on screen, per Vogue. "I love that there's an Asian person on-screen who everybody associates with kindness, humor, and comfort," she added.

Lily Collins had been wanting to find a project like "Emily in Paris" for awhile. However, because of the wide scope romantic comedies have to play with, Collins had to search for the perfect part. "There are so many different shades, and it's about finding the one that works the most for you," she explained to Vogue. Collins knows she was right to wait for this part to come along, and admitted she feels a "real sense of partnership" with her character, Emily Cooper.

Viewers would all agree that "Emily in Paris" wouldn't be what it is without Collins' flare as the title character. However, the actor revealed it was a tough road getting to a secure place in her career. The "Abduction" star explained that while rejection is par for the course with acting, she really had to work hard to stop letting it get to her. She admitted that, had she not been able to do that, she wouldn't still be acting now. "I had to find ways to pursue my passions and educate myself by getting other kinds of experience," she explained to TV Tango. This is something else she has in common with her character. "Emily's like that too. She sees 'no' as a comma, not a period," Collins noted.

Netflix is the perfect platform for this extremely binge-able comedy, however, the series wasn't always bound for the streaming service. "Emily in Paris" was originally intended to be a weekly series airing on cable TV, on the rebranded Paramount Network.

In 2020, Variety reported that "Emily in Paris" has been scooped up by Netflix and the series would be debuting exclusively on the streaming platform. It's not clear what exactly prompted the move away from Paramount Network, though it was perhaps not the right fit for the romantic comedy. The network only hosts a handful of scripted shows, like "Yellowstone," and "Emily in Paris" was not the first series to leave in search of greener pastures elsewhere.

"MTV Studios and I couldn't hope for a more perfect home for 'Emily In Paris' than Netflix," Darren Star admitted. The series creator also noted they could tap into a wider audience with Netflix. "With their international reach, we are excited to share Emily with audiences around the world." 

"Emily in Paris" star Lily Collins stayed in Paris while filming the series, even living in an apartment similar to Emily's, so when the same things that happened to her character in the show started happening to her in real life, she admitted she thought the cast and crew were playing a practical joke on her.

"I had a lot of similar experiences to Emily during this shooting in such a huge way that I actually thought that the producers, the other producers, and the directors were playing a game with me because my hot water went out for two weeks," she explained, per the "Emily in Paris" Netflix Afterparty (via Twitter).

This wasn't the extent of the supposed trick, either. Collins also revealed that she had no heating, there was construction going on all around her, and she stepped in dog poop. Sounds exactly like Emily's experience, but alas, the producers weren't playing a trick on her; that's just life in Paris.

Critics may have a lot to say about "Emily in Paris," but no one is disputing the show's incredible soundtrack. It's so good, in fact, that Spotify has created an "Emily in Paris" playlist.

Although the playlist doesn't include Ashley Park's version of "Chandelier" and "La Vie en Rose" from Season 1, she did record the latter song specifically for Spotify. Park admitted, "A lot of people were like, 'Where is the recording of this? Why can't we download it?' I was like, 'Well, it is a one-minute a cappella version that she's just singing in a park. I don't think you would want a recording of that,'" per Vanity Fair. Needless to say, fans ate it up — and the accompanying music video she created for the track.  

The updated playlist now includes tracks from the show's second season, including the original song Park sings in the series. "Mon Soleil" was written by songwriter Freddie Wexler specifically for the show. "It was very important to us that the song really is a story piece. As the song is being sung, the characters are going through something," Park explained to Vogue. "It's a big storyline moment," she added.

A big part of the "Emily in Paris" storyline revolves around Emily's social media marketing skills, which seem to be impressive in and out of the office. When Emily goes from a handful of followers to 25,000 on her personal account — all in the span of the first season — she becomes a bona fide influencer.

Plenty of viewers finished the show wanting Instagram tips from Emily herself. However, some were less than impressed by her instant success on social media. Vulture reached out to real-life influencers to gauge how realistic her rise to influencer fame actually was, and — spoiler — it's not very. "That would never happen," said one influencer, while others mocked Emily for being able to impress the CEO of Durée with one (not so witty) Instagram post. Most of the influencers suggested they would actually lose followers for posting some of Emily's content and none of them were impressed with the phrase "berry hungry," which Emily used get the attention of Durée Cosmetics' CEO. 

Filming on location for three months reportedly brought this cast and crew together. Lily Collins and Ashley Park have forged a friendship much like that of their on-screen characters. "Me and Lily, we have this real soul sisterhood. Neither of us were lacking in friendships, but when you meet those people, you're like, Oh, my God, I didn't even realize there was a space in my heart reserved for you. It's so easy," Park revealed to Vanity Fair.

She also formed a strong bond with some of her other co-stars while filming the first season of "Emily in Paris." "Luca[s], the guy who plays Gabriel, and Samuel, who plays Julien, lived with me in my apartment the last month and a half, because I had two bedrooms," she explained to Glamour. She even threw a party for the cast and crew after three months of filming, admitting that in that time "some of these people [have become] my diehards."