Personally I'm not a fan of young adult content, be it TV shows or books. I just can't relate. Funny I'm a late bloomer but I've always been open-minded. I must admit, Sex lives of college girls is one of my favourite young adult television shows. I enjoy it for the good laughs, the characters are so funny and witty.
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For actress Reneé Rapp, starring in The Sex Lives of College Girls has been “like coming out all over again,” at least in the public’s perception, which, she says, “honestly, is fun in a lot of ways.”
Now first on Showmax, Season 2 of the HBO Max comedy series has a 93% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says, “Bawdy and sweet as ever, The Sex Lives of College Girls continues to excel as a refreshing twist on youthful indiscretions.”
Created by six-time Emmy nominee Mindy Kaling (Never Have I Ever, The Office) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine writer Justin Noble, the 18SNL-rated comedy series follows four college roommates at the fictional Essex College. As they head back to college after the fall break, the new season is set to throw them into a semester filled with new faces, predicaments and, of course, more parties.
Amrit Kaur (The D Cut) returns as sex-positive cornball Bela, with Broadway star Alyah Chanelle Scott as aspiring pro soccer player Whitney and Pauline Chalamet (The King of Staten Island) as the eternally naive Kimberly.
Reneé plays oh-so-confident legacy student Leighton, whose secret lesbian hook-ups (including with SA actress Lex King) set YouTube on fire in Season 1 – even if Leighton herself is still figuring out the coming-out part.
A musical theatre actress and singer (whose EP 'Everything to Everyone' released late last year), Reneé starred as Regina George in the Broadway musical Mean Girls, a role she’s set to reprise in the recently announced Mean Girls movie. College Girls marks her TV series debut and, Reneé says, “I was very excited to audition for a character that felt like me.”
“My own relationship with queerness is loaded,” she explains. “I’m 22 and I’ve been out for a long time, but I still have thoughts and ideas sometimes that I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s so rooted in homophobia. Damn, Reneé!’”
“Being on the show has definitely made queerness a bigger conversation in my life in a lot of positive ways, even with my family,” she says.
“Sometimes when things are on a really public level, it’s really, really helpful, not only to people who already identify but also to other people. Both my parents are straight – so they say. They’re down to talk now. I don’t think we really talked about it that much growing up, ‘cause I wasn’t that comfortable talking about it.”
Season 2 will see Leighton getting a lot more comfortable talking about her sexuality, finding support from those closest to her.
Of her own experiences growing up, Reneé says, “I was very lucky to somehow grow up in a friend group [where] everybody ended up being gay. …and we all started hooking up with each other.”
“That was a mess,” she admits candidly. “But you know what? It built character.”
Today, Reneé is happy to be furthering the conversation on sexual diversity. “My best friend in the whole wide world and I both currently identify as being bisexual,” she says, “and he’s a guy, so there are different norms or stereotypes that go along with that for either women or men – or non-binary people period – so it’s really important to have queer representation and especially young queer representation across the board.”
That’s why it’s crucial that Leighton isn’t the show’s only queer character. As Reneé puts it, “Queerness is such a spectrum and there’s so many different kinds of queerness and identities of queerness, so I think you’re just seeing a really tiny part of the rainbow.”
Nominated for Best Comedy at the 2023 GLAAD Media Awards, two 2023 Casting Society of America Awards, and the 2022 MTV TV Awards “Here for the Hookup” prize, The Sex Lives of College Girls has already been renewed for a third season.