‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Pauline Chalamet on Embracing the Things You Can’t Control

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Season 3 of The Sex Lives of College Girls.]

From creators Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, Season 3 of the Max original series The Sex Lives of College Girls brought change to Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), Bela (Amrit Kaur) and Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott), as they had to say goodbye to Leighton (Reneé Rapp) when she decided to pursue academic ambitions elsewhere, and they welcomed a new roommate named Kacey (Gracie Lawrence). After a bumpy start to the school year, new guys, an inspirational professor and some priorities to get straight, friendship and the support the foursome has for each other get them through it all.

Over the three seasons since they started at Essex, Kimberly, Bela and Whitney have continued to grow and find their voices. Kimberly still manages to make more than her fair share of mistakes, but also typically learns from them while staying focused on her path toward becoming a Supreme Court justice. During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Chalamet talked about what she love about getting to work in a comedy ensemble, how Kimberly has evolved over the seasons, saying goodbye to Rapp this season, her favorite moment between Kimberly and Lila (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino), whether she thinks Kimberly might actually become a Supreme Court justice someday, shooting the family dinner scene, having to fake being a bad dancer, and the relationship with Eli (Michael Provost). She also discussed when she realized she wanted to be an actor, and why she owes working in comedy to Judd Apatow.

For Pauline Chalamet, Returning to Her ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Character Is Like Putting On a Pair of Worn Shoes

Collider: You came into this series as part of an ensemble of four. What have you most enjoyed about working as that core unit? What’s it been like to see the work that they’ve delivered, find your place in that, and grow from what you’ve gotten from them in return?

PAULINE CHALAMET: To be able to let people work as an ensemble, especially in a comedy, is really great. When I talk about what it is to come back to a character, I’ve been with this character for years. Even when I’m not playing her, I still know who she is, and it feels like putting on a pair of really worn shoes that you haven’t worn in a while. I feel like it’s the same with the dynamics. There’s a group of the core four, but then Kimberly also has her own storyline at Sips. And then, there’s also the different guys. It always feels like coming back to an established dynamic, and within the established dynamic, you’re just playing out different scenarios, which is a really lovely experience.

Did you come into this with a very clear sense of who Kimberly was, at least at that point, or did that friendship between these girls really help you understand and shape her even more? Did that change what you thought she would be?

CHALAMET: The answer is yes to both of those things. The second I read the pilot, I was like, “I get this girl. I hope this is the girl I’m auditioning for because I really like this girl.” I totally understood her. And then, when I got to meet the actors who were going to play the other characters in Kimberly’s life, I really started to understand Kimberly and her reactions better. When you’re reading it on the page, you’re just reading it through the lens of your character. But when the other characters are inhabited by other people, all of a sudden, you have something to bounce off of. Every scene that I do as Kimberly, I’m learning more about who she is.

There’s something so fun about her because it feels like she would be the most predictable character and yet somehow, she does these things that just aren’t predictable.

CHALAMET: It feels like Kimberly is constantly making mistakes. At times, it’s perplexing for me to read the scripts and be like, “Really?! Again? I’m confused. We learned this. No.” During freshman year, you can play that off as it being your freshman year and you’re figuring it out. But sophomore year, you have less of an excuse of, “I just left my home.” You didn’t just leave. You had a whole year, and then you had a whole summer. Now, you level up.

Saying Goodbye to Reneé Rapp Was Bittersweet for ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Co-Star Pauline Chalamet

When and how did you find out that Reneé Rapp would be leaving? Did she tell you? Did she tell everybody at once? How did that conversation happen?

CHALAMET: Yeah, I think we all found out at the same time. It was bittersweet because we obviously were all very close as a unit. But we were so excited because she wanted to focus on her music and that allowed her to do that more.

What did the last day on set with her feel like, compared to the first day on set without her? Was that strange?

CHALAMET: When you’re on set and you’re at work, it’s work. It’s a well-oiled machine. Sets function very similarly, whether you’re doing a drama, a comedy, an indie movie, or a big-budget movie. At the end of the day, you’re wrapping up and everybody is putting everything away. It’s more during the day that you have moments of, “Oh, my gosh!” But the end of the day is just the end of the day, just like the first day for another episode is back at work. It feels like work. It almost makes it a little easier because there are the personal feelings, but then there’s the work element.

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Season 3 premiered on November 21.

The four girls at the center of this have such big personalities that it’s been so great to see them all grow together. How challenging is that to then add something new to that and shake things up and figure out how that fits?

CHALAMET: Because the show is based in your college years, when you’re constantly meeting new people and growing apart from others and saying goodbye to people you don’t want to say goodbye to and being forced to hang out with people who didn’t think you were going to hang out with, the show lends itself to being able to integrate new people really easily. That’s how it felt with Gracie [Lawrence] and Mia [Rodgers], where it was effortless. We just understood who they were from the second they showed up on set. That also happened with Ilia [Isorelýs Paulino]. Kimberly and Lila have always had their friendship, but as it happens in college, when you start to find your people, you grow closer, and then that person takes up more space in the storyline. Something really exciting about Season 3 is that you get to see Lila flourish more in her element. That has just been such a joy to watch. She’s just so amazing.

Which Was Pauline Chalamet’s Favorite Kimberly and Lila Moment in Season 3 of ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’?

What was your favorite scene or storyline for Kimberly this season, and what was your favorite moment with Lila?

CHALAMET: My favorite scene with Lila was when Kimberly and Lila went on an adventure to burn those delivery robots. That was my favorite scene to shoot with her. She was making me laugh the entire time. I also love the lesson that is taught, that sometimes you have to break the rules. That’s a really important lesson for Kimberly to learn and I was really happy that Lila was the one teaching it to her. That was my favorite scene to shoot with Ilia, by far. Kimberly has a lot going on. I really love Kimberly’s scholarly ambition this season. Whereas in Season 1, she was struggling and wanted to be doing so well. In Season 3, it feels like she’s starting her goal of becoming a Supreme Court justice. Whether that happens or not, she meets her goal of getting into the symposium and having a professor like [Professor Friedman]. I’m obsessed with Tig Notaro. It was such a dream to be able to work with her. She’s just so dry. I feel like finding a mentor, and then getting into the symposium and realizing she has to work harder, was something I liked for Kimberly. She’s starting to find her scholarly element.

How do you think having someone like Professor Friedman to push her really helps Kimberly grow?

CHALAMET: I just think that’s such a good life lesson. There’s how you imagine things are going to go, and how you wish for them to go, and then the reality of what that is, and how do you contend with that? How can you continue to wish that things go a certain way while understanding that you actually have very little control over it? What you do have control over is how hard you can work at achieving your goals.

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After almost two years, it’s time to return to Essex College.

Do you think Kimberly will actually become a Supreme Court justice someday, or do you think that she’ll end up on a bunch of other life paths that may never lead her there?

CHALAMET: I think there’s a path where she could be a Supreme Court justice, but I think that it’s something she would come back to. I see Kimberly exploring many other options. She’s an out-of-the-box thinker about certain things or is growing into becoming an out-of-the-box thinker. And so, I think that she’s going to want to use that way of thinking for other endeavors.

‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Pauline Chalamet Has Love/Hate Feelings About Kimberly’s Naïveté

This is the character that you’ve played the longest. What have you loved about her since day one, and what do you love about who she is now?

CHALAMET: I have feelings of love/hate, but more a love of her naïveté. It’s really great to be so gullible about certain things because it means that you really believe the best in people. I’ve always loved that about her. And what I love about who she’s becoming is that she is someone who really wants to do good and she’s earnestly trying to figure out how to do that. She makes a lot of mistakes, but she does really want to get to the bottom of how she can become the best version of herself.

Do you think that’s what made it hard for her to understand why Whitney was so mad at her?

CHALAMET: She didn’t think in layers. She was just like, “Oh, I know Canaan from Sips.” Kimberly has all these guys in her life and she’s not used to it, and they all turn out to be not great. And then, here’s this really great guy who’s been her friend since day one, and I think she got a little confused. She was like, “He’s a really nice guy and he cares about me, and he respects me, and he’s attractive, and we’re really good friends. Maybe that means we’re supposed to be more than friends.” She gets confused about that, and she doesn’t think about Whitney. She doesn’t go that second layer to be like, “Oh, but he’s off limits. He’s not someone I can explore or have a friends to lovers situation with.” And so, Whitney is upset with her and Kimberly is finally like, “Okay, she’s really upset with me.” It’s waiting for her to come around and realize, “I have to own up to my mistake.”

What was it like to shoot the parent dinner scene? There’s a lot of character development going on and there’s a lot happening, particularly for Kimberly and her mother and her relationship with Eli (Michael Provost). What was it like to shoot a scene like that with so many people?

CHALAMET: First of all, I have a lot of shout-outs to do. Gail Mancusco directed that episode and she’s a veteran director. She has done all the shows. I was so impressed with the arrival with our parents at the dinner. There were like 15 people in that scene and she was able to block it so efficiently. The second shout-out is Nicole Sullivan, who plays my mom, because she was actually in a wheelchair. She broke her leg skiing two days before we were supposed to shoot, but she was like, “I’m coming. I’m shooting it.” We were like, “But you’re in a wheelchair. How?” And so, they had to incorporate that into the script. It was a lot for her. She wasn’t just in a wheelchair, she was hurt. It was amazing that she was able to show up and work. She is just such a pro and she’s so funny. Anything she says, I wanna laugh, so it’s very hard to keep a straight face.

That family dinner scene is one of my favorite scenes I’ve shot in the series. It was so amazing to see Missi [Pyle] work. She’s so great. We were getting to know Kacey, and to get to know Kacey with her mom was just such a joy. It’s nice because you really see a moment between all four girls in the bathroom, where they interact with each other, and you get to go deeper into the dynamics of their relationship. I absolutely loved filming that episode. It’s always hard to film a dinner scene because you just have so many moving parts. And Michael Provost, who plays Eli, was just such a dream to work with. That was a really fun episode.

Kimberly is game to have fun with her friends. She goes to the queer rodeo fundraising party and line dances, even though she’s tripping over her own feet. What was that line dancing scene like to shoot? Was it fun to intentionally dance badly?

CHALAMET: I have a background in dance, so we had a rehearsal and I wanted to dance well. I wanted the choreographer to like me. At first, I had so much fun doing it really well. And then, I remembered the script and was like, “You can’t do this well.” I’m not really good at dancing at the clubs. I like to just dance how I want. I was like, “Okay, you have to imagine that you’re doing this the way you think you are at the clubs.” That’s what Kimberly’s level of dance is. That made sense to me. But I had to know the choreography to be able to mess it up.

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What was it like to explore the relationship between Kimberly and Eli this season? She’s learning how to approach a relationship with somebody who is bisexual. What do you think she learned from that relationship?

CHALAMET: First of all, it was really a lot of fun to work with Michael Provost. I like Kimberly’s relationship with Eli because they’re really different, but they have fun together. In the beginning, Kimberly just gets very in her head and is not really listening and not paying attention to how she can be the best version of herself. She’s like, “Okay, this is what I have to do for him to like me or to impress him. This is what I should do.” But that aside, what I really liked about the storyline is that they’re really different. He makes a mistake, but in her head, it’s not an irreversible mistake. There’s a future with an apology. There’s a future of running into each other. That’s what I really liked about that character and that storyline. He’s a really nice guy and he’s confident. I don’t know why I imagined him a year older, but maybe he’s not. Sexually, he’s just quite confident. I thought that was a fun storyline.

Are you someone who always knew you wanted to be and had to be an actor? Was it something you always felt driven to do? What was the first acting role you did that really fulfilled that dream and idea of it for you, that made you go, “Okay, I was right, this is what I have to be doing”?

CHALAMET: When I was 7 or 8 years old, I was on a soap opera and I loved it. I loved learning my lines. I loved driving to the studio. I was on One Life to Live and I had a great time, but it was also about that age when I started to take ballet very seriously. And so, for a very long time, I thought I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I’ve always loved acting, and I always wanted to take it more seriously, but I was also so worried about the future. What I liked about ballet dancing was that the career starts so early that, when I was 15 years old, I was like, “I could be a professional dancer now.” Once I stopped ballet dancing after my bike accident, all of a sudden, the world opened up for me in a new way. I knew I loved acting, but I also was so worried that there might be something else that I wanted to do. So, for a long time, I was just trying all these other things, until coming back and being like, “No, I really wanna act.” That’s how I knew it was absolutely what I wanted to do.

Do you know what you’re going to do next, acting wise? Do you have types of projects or genres you’d like to work in or things on the production side, or do you try to never have a plan?

CHALAMET: You can’t really have a plan in this line of work, I find. There were a few movies that I was supposed to do, that all fell through, some because of scheduling with the show and some didn’t get financing. There are so many reasons why. It’s so hard to get a movie made. I wish we were able to be like, “Okay, this is the next thing, and this will be the next thing, and this will be the next thing.” But nothing happens until it happens. So, I have a few projects in the works right now. When they’re gonna go and how that’s gonna happen is up to the gods at this point. I love being on set and I love working, so I’m excited about the projects that are to come.

Pauline Chalamet Owes Director Judd Apatow for Setting Her on a Path to Comedy

Is comedy something that you always felt like you had in you and that you wanted to do, or is that something you’ve realized you just really enjoy?

CHALAMET: Thank you. I owe it to Judd Apatow. He saw an audition of mine. I had been living in Paris and doing theater there. I auditioned for The King of Staten Island and he was like, “Yeah, you can do this.” And I was like, “What?!” What was nice was that I didn’t feel like I had to be funny. I just had to exist in a Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson world. It was also dark comedy, so it was a soft entryway into it. And then, I was going to see Pete’s shows a lot, and I was going to see this comedian, Ricky Velez, who was also in the movie. I was going and seeing their stand-up. I had always been into going to different comedy clubs around the city growing up, and I was watching more and more specials. Comedians are so impressive. I’ve never considered myself a comedian. As I was reading scripts, including when I got sent the pilot of The Sex Lives of College Girls, I understood comedy in a technical sense and knew that it was about timing. You don’t have to worry about being funny. You have to worry about understanding what you’re saying. That’s been my driving force. And I think that’s true with drama, too. I really think with comedy, a lot of it is in the writing.

Release Date

November 18, 2021

Cast

Pauline Chalamet
, Amrit Kaur
, Alyah Chanelle Scott
, Renika Williams
, Christopher Meyer
, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino
, Reneé Rapp
, Mekki Leeper
, Betti
, Lauren Spencer
, Sierra Katow
, Isabella Roland
, Gracie Lawrence
, Mia Rodgers
, Midori Francis
, Gavin Leatherwood
, Cheyenne Perez
, Mitchell Slaggert
, Conor Donnally
, Scott Lipman
, Maya Rose
, Charlie Hall
, Rob Huebel
, James Morosini
, Sherri Shepherd
, Amanda Ripley

Seasons

3

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The Sex Lives of College Girls is available to stream on Max. Check out the Season 3 trailer:

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