Lily Collins scratches itch to travel with ‘Emily in Paris’
Lily Collins definitely had a perk working on her latest project late last year: She lived in Paris for four months while filming the Netflix series “Emily in Paris.”
Created by Darren Star (”Sex and the City,” “Younger”) and debuting Friday, the new series follows Collins as a woman from Chicago who gets sent to Paris to be in charge of social media for a luxury brand company.
Her character, Emily, has an eye for
what will pop online and snapshots of her posts and clever captions often appear on screen. (Emily’s puns, by the way, are a fun callback to Carrie Bradshaw’s writing in “Sex and the City.”)
Collins says apart from the writers and directors and one other cast member (Ashley Park of Broadway’s “Mean Girls”), the crew was French. They even found themselves experiencing the city through her character’s eyes.
“We had access to so many incredible locations,” said Collins. “It was so wonderful to experience that with the camera crew and everyone behind the scenes because they were going, ‘I never thought I’d have access to this either,’ so everyone was having these wide-eyed moments together.”
Collins sometimes felt oddly in sync with her fish-out-of-water character, like the time she lost hot water in her rented apartment — just like Emily.
The series isn’t all croissants, cafes and wine (although there is plenty of that). Emily also has a lot of work to do to be accepted by her French colleagues. They don’t appreciate that she isn’t fluent in their language, believe she speaks up when she should stay silent, and her enthusiasm is off-putting.
Series creator Star hopes the show encourages people to explore the world, when it’s safe to do so.
“Americans have a big country and we don’t travel as much as everybody else does around the world and I hope this show inspires people to do that.”