Everything you didn’t know about the star of Emily in Paris

I value Lily Collins far more than Emily Cooper, which certainly does not stop me from watching the fifth season of Emily in Paris without blinking, just so I can later “have an opinion about everything”: the outfits, the lines, the (un)predictable romantic entanglements. With every new season, Lily once again finds herself at the center of attention, and this role, as she says, helped her grow both as a person and as an actress. “As Emily grew, I grew too, not only as an actress but also as a producer,” she said. “I became more confident as Emily, but also as Lily. Today I ask deeper questions about the project as a whole, far more than I would have in the first season.”

Before the success of the Netflix series, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 2021, Lily Collins gained wider recognition with the 2012 film Mirror, Mirror. Although today we mostly associate her with romantic stories and comedies, she is equally convincing in the horror genre as well, just take a look at Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile from 2019. Perhaps the most intriguing part of her portfolio is the upcoming drama in which she stars alongside a well known Serbian actor. Below, we bring you eight interesting facts you need to know about Lily Collins.

She started acting in early childhood

The daughter of famous musician Phil Collins and actress Jill Tavelman, British American Lily Collins seemed destined for a career in entertainment from birth. She was born in Surrey, in southeast England, and moved to Los Angeles at the age of three. She landed her first role at just two years old in the BBC series Growing Pains in 1992. Her second project was voice acting in the animated film Tarzan from 1999.

“My love for acting goes back to childhood. My mom and dad would read me books before bed, as many parents do, and I would simply get lost in that world of imagination, picturing what the film might look like,” she said in one interview. “My dream was to take my people on that journey and become those characters they were reading to me about.”

She has always been a fashion icon

Darren Star has often been criticized for a lack of realism in Sex and the City, and it seems that lesson was not fully learned. Like Carrie Bradshaw, Emily in the series wears luxury pieces from head to toe by the world’s biggest fashion houses, all while earning a marketing manager’s salary.

In real life, Lily Collins is a Cartier ambassador and just as fashion conscious as her alter ego. Back in 2007, at only 18 years old, she attended the Bal des Débutantes at the Crillon Hotel, wearing a long Chanel gown inspired by the 1950s, richly embroidered with feathers and sequins in the same tone, with a defined waist and a voluminous skirt reinforced by an inner corset. The exclusive evening was captured in the episode Paris Changes Everything from the third season of The Hills.

She starred in the series Les Misérables

In Emily in Paris, the character played by Lily Collins often seems confused by French customs, even though it was not her first encounter with them. In fact, in 2018 the actress had already played a Parisian in an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. Alongside Dominic West as Jean Valjean, Lily portrayed Fantine, a young woman abandoned by her partner and left to raise their child, little Cosette, played by Ellie Bamber, on her own.

She struggled with severe eating disorders

In the 2017 Netflix film To the Bone, Lily Collins plays Ellen, a twenty year old woman battling anorexia. Despite numerous therapies, the heroine fails to recover, and her parents, in a last attempt, send her to a facility run by an unconventional doctor. In the film, Lily Collins appears fragile, moving, and sincere, which comes as no surprise since she herself struggled with eating disorders. As a teenager, she went through difficult periods of bulimia and anorexia. She spoke openly about this phase of her life in her 2017 autobiography Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me. “Most of my deepest insecurities stem from the issues I had with my father,” she said, noting that over time she forgave him for his absence from her life.

She published her memoirs

Did you know that Lily Collins published her memoirs in 2017 under the title Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, in which she reflects on the most important experiences and greatest challenges of her life? In the book, she speaks in detail not only about her battle with an eating disorder, but also about emotional abuse by a former partner. “I was nervous writing about it, because there is always fear that even when you are no longer together, that person can still control you in some way,” she told Teen Vogue.

She also acted in horror films

Lily Collins surprised audiences in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, available on Netflix. After romantic comedies such as Stuck in Love and Love, Rosie, the actress made a radical turn by playing the girlfriend of American serial killer Ted Bundy, portrayed by Zac Efron. The film is inspired by the memoirs of Bundy’s real life partner, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, and Lily delivers an emotional and harrowing portrayal of a woman who, despite the monstrosity of the crimes, remains loyal to the man she loves. This month, the actress returns to horror once again, appearing as a scream queen in the A24 film MaXXXine, alongside a very interesting female cast.

She collaborated with a well known Serbian actor

Judging by her portfolio, the film Halo of Stars, in which she has a leading role alongside well known Serbian actor Nikola Đuričko, should be released soon. According to the synopsis, the story is set within a small traveling circus and follows a man who works as a clown and his young daughter as they guide each other through everyday life’s mysteries of love, magic, and loss. We cannot wait to learn more about this project.

She met her husband Charlie McDowell on set

As often happens in the acting world, Lily met her current husband, director Charlie McDowell, on the set of his film Gilded Rage, in which she starred. They connected immediately and married in September 2021, and earlier this year, with the help of a surrogate, they welcomed their daughter Tove.

She starred in a beloved childhood fairy tale

Lily Collins played Snow White in the 2012 film Mirror, Mirror, alongside Julia Roberts. In this modern interpretation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the beloved childhood heroine, as in the original story, is banished from the castle by the evil queen. However, in director Tarsem Singh’s version, Snow White is far stronger and organizes a rebellion to stop the evil queen. The film achieved major commercial success and won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.