“We shoot mostly in order based on the episodes, because sometimes they’re writing the episodes as we’re there. So at the beginning of the season, we don’t have all 10 scripts to read”.

Emily in Paris is finally back for the second instalment of season four. This season, Emily finds herself in a new city with new faces, and lots of new adventures. We caught up with Lily Collins to get all the tea on what went down behind the scenes!

Have any funny bloopers occurred while filming? And have any ever made it into the show?

Ashley (Park) and I, you can never shut us up when you get us together. So usually our directors are like, “Oh, oh, oh, one second”. But this season we also got to go skiing in the mountains – well “skiing”  – it was more like falling for me. So there’s a lot of outtakes from that, which was hilarious. It didn’t hurt. It was more like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

And sometimes they do keep those bloopers in because it makes total sense. Like she’s clumsy or she, she’s nervous, or whatever. But then sometimes it distracts from the goal of the scene.  So like, she’s falling down the mountain, but then she’s falling and ultimately she meets someone. So it’s almost like holding it until that moment and not allowing it to come earlier. So maybe the bloopers would ruin it. I don’t know. I feel like there’s a method and an art to the edit that I have still to discover, which is a whole nother beast.

What cast group chats are you in? What are they called and who’s the most active in them?

My one that goes off mostly is just between Ashley and I. Like no matter where we are in the world, we’re sending each other things. Ashley is big on voice notes and sometimes it’s just her laughing, which makes me laugh because she’ll just send a voicenote and I’m like, “Oh, what is this?” And it’s just her laughing at whatever I just said. I love that she chooses to say it instead of text it, I giggle the most with that. But I would also say Samuel (Arnold) is great with some memes.

What’s the most unusual or memorable thing you ate while on location?

I would say actually in Rome, I had the best affogato I’ve ever had. Affogatos are amazing. So you need the right gelato and the right coffee and here you get both. And the combination of the two is the best.

What do you think are some of the biggest differences between French and American cultures?

Ooh, I think we leaned into it season one where it was working to live and living to work. I think that there’s a real driven-ness, if you will, in everyone’s mentality of working in both places.

But there is maybe more of an, “Okay, at this time of day, I put my phone away and I just focus on what I wanna do” and kind of turn work mode off a little bit more [in French culture], which I appreciate. And also taking longer time for meals, whether it’s a lunch or a dinner. I aIso feel like everything happens slightly later here. I’m okay with a six o’clock dinner. Whereas here it’s like, “Let’s go at nine, 9.30” – I’m in bed! But that could also be an age thing. I’m sure when I was 18, I was down with that. But now I’m like, “Let’s do an early bird special.”

After four seasons, how involved are you in Emily’s storyline? Have you made any influential decisions on her story arc?

I’ve definitely been in conversations with all of our other producers, showrunner Darren (Star), and of course the writers and helped give my opinions and thoughts.

Also with casting decisions, which is to me one of the most important things when you’re dealing with chemistry with people. And also just the way that you see Emily’s changes in her own personality and what she gravitates more towards and just being an active viewer myself of other shows and kind of understanding character arcs and like where would I wanna see Emily go? But also who do I wanna see on screen? And what kind of stories do I wanna tell?

Has there ever been a time you thought, “Emily wouldn’t wear this”? Or seen something and thought, “Emily HAS to wear this”? 

I’ve definitely done both, but when I’ve thought it wasn’t something Emily would wear, I was encouraged to try it on anyway. And then I’m like, “You know what? I was wrong. This is perfect.” It’s all about the fit. It’s all about, it’s a character. And I love when I’m proven wrong on this show when it comes to fashion, because it’s all about taking risks. And I really lean into Marilyn’s (Fitoussi) aesthetic and her geniusness, because you don’t always know from a hanger, you know?

Are there any interesting tidbits about the filming process that fans might be interested to know?

We shoot mostly in order based on the episodes, because sometimes they’re writing the episodes as we’re there. So at the beginning of the season, we don’t have all 10 scripts to read. We have the first few. And then as we’re experiencing the city and we’re finding the characters that year, the writing is happening in real time. So I think a lot of times people assume we know right when we start where we’re ending.

But sometimes it’s like two weeks before we’re starting and we’re finding out what’s happening. And we hear rumours. Like last year, it was like, there’s a rumour that there’s gonna be a wedding and that there’s a rumour there’s a baby. And I’m like, “Well, there’s no way that there can be both of those things!” And then we literally all were at the table read, reading it for the first time. We were like, “What? Huh?” And so I think people assume that we just know, but we don’t.

Do you have an Emily playlist to help get you into character? If so, what’s on it?

I don’t have an Emily playlist that gets me into character, but I definitely am inspired by music. So if it’s more of an emotional scene, I’ll pull some songs that I feel are more meaningful to me as Lily that might put me in that space. But usually when we’re filming, I play music that is popular right now in that moment, because I feel like Emily would be listening to like the top 40 or any of the kind of like pop moments. And this year there were some Dua Lipa and Lizzo songs that I was listening to that ultimately were in the show, in sequences where we’re dancing, we use those songs as a backing track to get us amped. And it felt like I was myself having fun and then also as Emily. Oh, definitely Dua Lipa, Lizzo, like I said, probably some Sabrina Carpenter, Beyoncé. I think, you know, she loves an anthem.