Lily Collins plays Emily Cooper in the popular Netflix show Emily in Paris, now back for Season 4.

Lily Collins is in the spotlight once more with the return of Emily in Paris, now in its fourth season. The actor plays the title character, Emily Cooper, who is an American marketing executive working and living abroad in Paris. Emily is more than just a part for Collins, who claims the role has helped her grow as a person and an actor.

“With the growth of Emily, there’s come a real growth in myself within my role as an actor, but also as a producer,” she told the Associated Press earlier this month. “I’ve grown more confident as Emily but also with Lily. I’m asking deeper questions about the entire project, more so than I would’ve in Season 1.”

Before her success in the Netflix series, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 2021, the 35-year-old first gained mainstream recognition from her role in the 2012 film Mirror, Mirror. Collins has since gone on to star in movies like Warren Beatty’s romantic drama Rules Don’t Apply in 2016 and the Ted Bundy reimagining Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile in 2019, as well as the 2024 horror film MaXXXine.

Here are eight things you might not know about the British-American actor.

Lily Collins started acting as a toddler

Collins has been acting since she was just 2 years old, landing her first role in the BBC series Growing Pains in 1992. Her second project was a voiceover gig for the animated film Tarzan in 1999.

“My love of acting just came from when I was younger. My mom and dad would read books to me before bed, as a lot of parents do, and I would just kind of disappear in this dream world in my head of what the movie would look like,” Collins told Shondaland in 2019. “And my dream became to take people with me on that journey and become those people.”

Her father is musician Phil Collins

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Speaking of her dad, Lily’s father is acclaimed British musician Phil Collins. Phil played in the bands Genesis and Brand X and also has had a successful solo career. Father and daughter were even coworkers on Tarzan. Phil composed and performed the songs on the movie’s soundtrack. One of the most famous songs from the movie, “You’ll Be In My Heart,” was written as a lullaby for Lily. According to her memoir, Lily had a rift with her father for a while but has since forgiven him for being absent in her early years.

She had her big break in The Blind Side

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Collins made her big-screen debut in the 2009 movie The Blind Side, starring opposite Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. In the movie, she played football star Michael Oher’s adoptive sister.

Collins recently told Instyle Bullock’s performance and work ethic helped her learn the ins and outs of a Hollywood movie set. “I really understood by watching her and hearing the questions she was asking and the interactions she was having on set how to better navigate that world,” she said.

Collins starred in the controversial movie To The Bone

Collins starred as the lead in the 2017 Netflix movie To The Bone, in which she played a young woman struggling with anorexia. The movie was heavily criticized for its portrayal of eating disorders. During the promotion of the movie, Collins revealed she related to her character because she also had an eating disorder as a teenager.

“I saw it as an opportunity to understand my disorder better. I was nervous but also really excited to finally tell my story through a character [and] also unburden myself,” she said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK in July 2017.

At one point, Collins wanted to be a journalist

While Collins always knew she wanted to be an actor and started acting from a young age, she was also interested in journalism for a while. As a teenager, she wrote for magazines like Teen Vogue and Seventeen and had her own column in the British magazine Elle Girl. She even covered the 2008 presidential election for Nickelodeon at age 18.

Collins went on to briefly study broadcast journalism at the University of Southern California but only stayed until her sophomore year. She decided to drop out to pursue larger acting roles.

She met her husband, Charlie McDowell, on set

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In 2019, Collins and her now-husband, director Charlie McDowell, met on the set of his movie Gilded Rage, which she starred in. The two hit it off immediately and got engaged the following year. Collins and McDowell married in September 2021 and have appeared on several red carpets together. The couple worked together again in 2022 for the movie Windfall.

Collins is a published author

Collins wrote a memoir in 2017 titled Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me that reflects on the most important experiences and biggest challenges in her life. In the book, she details her struggles with her eating disorder and opens up about a past emotionally abusive relationship.

“I was nervous to write about it because there’s always that fear when you’re with someone like that, that even when you’re not together, they can control you in some way,” Collins told Teen Vogue. “I don’t feel that anymore, but part of the reason of not wanting to get out of that relationship is that fear.”

She’s good friends with her Emily in Paris co-star Ashley Park

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Collins doesn’t just play onscreen friends with her Emily in Paris co-star Ashley Park—they get along in real life as well. Collins and Park told Canada’s National Post that they connected the moment they met on set and that their connection has only grown over time. “I do think that the best friendships, it’s not so much that they change, but they deepen,” Park said.