Pauline Chalamet on 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' and Life in Paris

Pauline Chalamet recently had what one might call her Larry David moment. She was attending her first-ever fashion show for Miu Miu’s Spring 2022 collection in Paris, when, like David at Staud before her, she realized she didn’t know how to act. “I almost burst out laughing because it's so serious,” she says. “It really feels like an extension of the art world — like you're going into a gallery in Chelsea and you're like, ‘I don't get it. There are people who do. And I know that I'm not supposed to talk loud.’ At the end, all the models come out and it’s so impressive. But no one’s clapping? Anyways, it was great.”

The 29-year-old actor recounts this over lunch at The Odeon, a French bistro and New York staple located just a few blocks from where she’s currently staying with a family friend in Tribeca. Despite being born and raised in Manhattan (she’s a graduate of LaGuardia High School, best known as the Fame school and for its long list of notable alumni, including Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Aniston, and Chalamet’s younger brother, Timothée), she’s only been here once before, when she and a high school friend mistook it for a casual diner before reading the menu and realizing that they and their credit-card-less wallets were mistaken. “I don't really even know how we ended up paying for it,” she reminisces. The restaurant in the midst of the Friday lunch rush, with baskets of fries and oversize salads piling up at nearly every table. The date itself is notable only because it’s the Friday before Halloween and, more importantly, almost three weeks prior to the debut of HBO Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls, Chalamet’s first major acting job.

The show, created by Mindy Kaling, follows four random roommates as they navigate their freshman year of college. In it, Chalamet plays Kimberly, the most straight-laced and occasionally naive of the four. She’s a small town girl out of her element but making the most of her experience (by Episode 3, she’s released her inhibitions enough to attend a fully naked college rager). The show itself is laugh-out-loud funny, with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop culture references and plenty of “I can’t believe this is happening” moments. It’s also grounded and often poignant, with devastating blows that will send you right back to those moments of collegiate heartbreak. Filming the show in Los Angeles over the course of nine months, Chalamet had the rare opportunity of getting to relive — and revise — her own college adventures.

“I got a do-over,” she says. “Kimberly is very strong. She’s the quirky friend, but she’s also a total bad*ss. I was not like that.” The college in the show is a fictional small liberal arts school in Vermont, not unlike Bard College, where Chalamet graduated with a double major in theater and political studies in 2014. “I became a really good student at Bard and I fell in love with learning,” she says, choosing her words thoughtfully. “I cannot say I liked going to Bard. For me, I think it was very small. I felt money pressure. I really felt you needed to have a certain amount of money to be there. I was dating a boy at the time who was a photographer and so sweet, and I really credit him with why I stayed. I had this shift around sophomore year where I was like, ‘I’m either making the most of this or I'm leaving.’” She stayed, but immediately decamped to Paris upon graduation, telling basically no one of her decision. “I told my family after I had signed a lease,” she says.

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