With Emily in Paris Season 2, Lily Collins Really Wanted to “Celebrate All That Paris Had to Offer”

Emily in Paris fans are on the edge of their seats waiting for season two’s arrival, and star/coproducer Lily Collins is just as excited for viewers to see it. Season two hits Netflix on Dec. 22, and according to the 32-year-old actor, it’s going to lean more into “empowering female friendships” now that Paris has “become a second home” to her character.

The series, which follows rising marketing maven Emily Cooper (Collins) in her new adventures in Paris, became a huge hit on Netflix right at the height of lockdown in 2020. Though the cast and crew had no idea the world would be facing a pandemic while filming last year, Collins attributes the breakout success of the Paris-set show to its escapism elements. “It reminded people of what fun felt like [when] there was a wish fulfillment of travel,” she told POPSUGAR. “It’s all these nostalgic things that we were thinking about, that we were hoping one day to experience again – to just disappear into a world other than our own.”

Season one of Emily in Paris showed Collins’s character experiencing culture shock while trying to adjust to her new surroundings. Upon landing her dream job in Paris, viewers watched as an optimistic Emily tried to adopt the city and its native tongue as her own, but along the way she met a few friends – Mindy (Ashley Park), Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), and Camille (Camille Razat) – to help her out.

Now that there’s a solid foundation for Emily in Paris to stand on, Collins says the series has a “more grounded nature to a lot of the character storylines and it’s relatable.” “I think there’s a little part of everyone in each of these characters,” she added. “Hopefully, [viewers] find one that they really can relate to, maybe more than others, and that everyone feels more represented.”

Upon its season one premiere, Emily in Paris faced some criticism for its lack of diversity and representation. In season two, the series welcomes a few new faces – Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) and fashion designer Gregory Elliott Dupree (Jeremy O. Harris) – but there’s still question of whether or not the new cast additions fulfill the representation viewers hope to see. When asked how the new season leans into more diversity and inclusion efforts, Collins said, “We wanted to really accentuate and celebrate all that Paris had to offer within these next 10 episodes, and that included welcoming new storylines for the characters that already existed on screen.” She also added: “A lot of storylines don’t involve Emily because I really wanted to celebrate the actors having their own storylines, but also welcome new characters that represented more sides of Paris, and that illuminated these new personalities that Emily got to know.”

Season two of Emily in Paris still holds onto some of its star’s most quirky qualities, but the narrative of the show becomes much bigger than her character – allowing others to be more centred. “I think she’s continuing to find herself in humorous ways, of course, because it wouldn’t be Emily in Paris without humour,” Collins said of her character. “But I think there’s a real grounded quality to this season, which we get to see within the multi-layers of the different characters, whether they be new or old . . . Hopefully, you get to really dive a little deeper and understand [these] characters better and allow Emily to understand her new friends better.”

Season two of Emily in Paris officially debuts on Netflix on Dec. 22.