The city of love! Lily Collins, Lucas BravoThe first season had more than a few fans swooning. Emily in Paris — and their love lives off-camera are just as romantic.
The Darren StarThis Netflix-created series premiered in October 2020. Initial reviews were mixed. While plenty of viewers adored the show’s campy style, others struggled to follow the somewhat unrealistic plot. Collins, whose character Emily Cooper arrives in France to find a job, admitted that critics of the show were a driving force behind season 2.
“As disheartening as it sometimes is to read these things, it’s also a gift,” the actress said in the November 2020 cover story for Vogue Arabia. “You’re being allowed to improve.”
Bravo had just defended the series’ lighthearted nature against an unimpressed audience a month before. “We’re portraying cliches and we’re portraying one single vision of Paris,” the breakout star told CosmopolitanOctober 2020. “Paris is one of the most diverse cities in the world. There are so many ways to think, so many nationalities, and so many neighborhoods. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to know everything that’s going on in Paris.”
The actor continued at the time, “It’s an entire world in a city. You must choose an angle if you want to tell a Paris story. You must choose a vision. French critics, they didn’t understand the fact that it’s just one vision. They’re like, ‘Oh, this is not what Paris is.’ Of course. Paris is many things.”
For Collins, stepping into the rom-com mindset wasn’t a challenge after hitting a major relationship milestone of her own in September 2020. In September 2020, Collins got engaged to her director. Charlie McDowell.
“I was very surprised as to when and where it would happen, but it was one of those situations where I knew the second that I met him that I wanted to be his wife one day,” she said of the proposal on Live with Kelly & Ryan weeks later. “So, it was just a matter of when, really. It was all preplanned. He created a self-timer video which we were able to later obtain screen grabs. But, he set the whole thing up without me knowing, obviously.”
Bravo, for his part, has kept quiet about his relationship status — but hasn’t ruled out finding The One in unexpected places.
“I have this rule about costars,” he told GlamourOctober 2020. “Once you step on set, it’s a workplace, and I want to keep it professional. … [And] I don’t really have fans, so I don’t know. That is a question I will maybe answer some other time.”
Scroll down to find out more about the Emily in Paris cast’s love lives: