Yahoo Movies Reneé Rapp on How Heartbreak Led to Her Debut EP and Why Playing Leighton on ‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ Is ‘F—ing Freeing’
Almost one year ago, Reneé Rapp got her heart broken — and in a “really shitty way,” as she puts it. But instead of falling into despair, the “Sex Lives of College Girls” star immediately called her manager.
“I explained it to him like, ‘I feel it in my fingers that this is going to be the year that everything I have ever wanted to happen can happen,’” Rapp tells Variety over lattes in a cozy Toluca Lake coffee shop. “It was like getting out of that relationship made me confident.”
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At first glance, it’s hard to imagine that the 22-year-old singer and actor could harbor any insecurities. She speaks with an unabashed openness from the start, discussing everything from her dating life (“I’ve had so many tiny failed relationships this year”) to the intricacies of her Zodiac sign (Capricorn sun, Gemini rising, Pisces moon) with the familiarity of an old friend. She’s dressed casually, her blonde hair covered by a hat that crowns her “Queen Bee” (relevant to both her attitude and, as is later discovered, her love for Beyoncé) and an oversized the Cure t-shirt, though she’s the first to admit she’s never listened to the band’s music. “I’m going to be honest, this is one of those situations where some man on the street is like, ‘I bet you’ve never listened to that band’ and I’m like, ‘I fucking haven’t,'” she says.
Not to mention Rapp’s résumé: She took over the role of Regina George in Broadway’s “Mean Girls” at the ripe age of 19 and has since made waves as the stuck-up yet lovable Leighton in Mindy Kaling’s HBO Max comedy “Sex Lives,” which returns for Season 2 on Nov. 17. But Rapp has struggled to accomplish the one thing she’s always wanted to do: release original music.
A North Carolina native, Rapp started songwriting and participating in musical theater from a young age, learning to sing by playing Beyoncé’s early records over and over in place of voice lessons. As Rapp got older, she knew pretty immediately that college wasn’t for her. Luckily, she had a role model in Eva Noblezada (now a two-time Tony nominee for “Miss Saigon and “Hadestown), whom she knew from the local Charlotte theater community. Noblezada had attended Northwest School of the Arts and was a finalist in the National High School Musical Theatre awards, which led to her landing the role of Kim in “Miss Saigon” on the West End. Rapp thought that she could do the same thing — and she was right. She transferred to the school and, in 2018, won the Jimmy Award for best performance by an actress, leading to her eventual casting in “Mean Girls.”
“[I thought], I can do music on the side, like, I can just hustle. And now I’ve just kept acting, because it keeps supporting the music…Acting was my way into tricking everyone that I warranted attention, so that I could have this interview with you,” she says.
“This is my ‘Mastermind’ moment, 100%,” she adds, referencing the Taylor Swift song.
But finding success in the music business didn’t come as easily. The performer was “told that I was not understandable, that I had to wear certain things, that my body needed to look a certain way, from the time that I was 16 to 20, by different men and even by different women,” she says.
It wasn’t until after her mainstream breakout as Leighton in “Sex Lives” in November of last year that she finally found industry support, signing with Interscope Records, where she truly feels respected.
“Literally the first meeting that I had [with Interscope], I was like, ‘I love these people,'” Rapp says. “I was just immediately like, ‘Holy shit, you actually want to listen to me.’ I was also really proud of myself because it worked. I acted, I made a platform for myself, I commanded a little bit of attention, and now people give a fuck. So I was also like, slay. I kind of ate with the plan.”
It’s all been leading up to the release of her first EP, “Everything to Everyone,” out Friday via Interscope Records. The seven-track project is an intimate, confessional peek inside Rapp’s psyche, full of ballads with a pop edge — produced by some of the most in-demand talent, including Blake Slatkin, Omer Fedi and Cirkut — that showcase Rapp’s powerhouse, unwavering vocals.
Take “Colorado,” the album’s third track, for example. Despite its upbeat tempo and relatable first line (“I think my life might be better if I lived in Colorado”), the story behind the music taps into something much deeper. Rapp explains that growing up, her family would embark on annual ski vacations to the state, but it also happens to be the place that she first truly fell in love with music — via Frank Ocean’s “Nostalgia, Ultra” mixtape.
“I was skiing down the mountain by myself listening to ‘There Will Be Tears,’ and I was just sobbing. This 12-year-old little blonde girl’s going down the mountain, just crying,” Rapp recalls. “I was like, ‘This is my only moment of peace.’ And it was such a connecting moment with music for me, because I was like, ‘This is something that I feel actually not lonely in.'”
But the track on the EP that means the most to Rapp is “What Can I Do,” the first song she penned about a woman — a straight friend of hers who she grew “incredibly enamored with.”
“That’s the first gay song I ever wrote, which is hilarious because I’ve been out for like eight years,” says Rapp, who identifies as queer. “I love being able to have my gayness and my queerness in such a beautiful song.” Growing up in North Carolina, it was “this thing that a lot of people mocked and thought it was this kitschy, hypersexualized thing. And for me, it’s actually the most pure, in love, angelic thing.”
Rapp continues, “It’s like this middle ground of falling in love with a straight woman who you’re not sure is actually straight. And then, to be honest, I was also really uncomfortable with myself because I was like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ I was having mad internalized homophobia of like, ‘This is so fucking weird of me.’ And then I was like wait no, I love this person in a very different way and I don’t know if they love me in the same way and it’s infuriating. I was like, I would literally do anything for you, and also your boyfriend is not good to you. Like we both know this. You don’t like this man! And they’re not together anymore, so hello.”
Though Rapp has been open about her sexuality for a while, playing closeted Leighton on “Sex Lives” — who, by the end of Season 1, had revealed it to only Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) — has changed her perspective on her own journey.
“I never really came out, and for the longest time I had always said that it was because I was in such a loving and accepting environment. And I now know that that is so incredibly the fucking opposite of what happened, and I was really just so afraid to openly be myself because I got made fun of a lot for it,” she says. “So I actually feel like since the show has come out, I’ve come out all over again in a way that is fucking freeing.”
Filming Season 2 of “Sex Lives” was also a liberating experience for Rapp, who says she thought there was “no fucking way” she’d be asked to return after the first season.
“Season 1 I just spent having anxiety attacks everyday of, ‘I’m a horrible actor,'” Rapp says. “It was all self-induced, but this season I felt like I just got to show up to work and do my thing, as opposed to try and be this overly nice people-pleaser. I feel like I just got to be authentic to who I am.”
Though Rapp can’t tease much about Leighton’s storyline in the upcoming season, she promises her character will continue to be as “sarcastic and cunty” as ever — two traits she claims to share with Leighton. But most of all, Rapp wants people to know — whether they listen to her new EP, watch Season 2 of “Sex Lives,” or both — that she’s very much still figuring things out.
“I hope that people understand that I’m such a work in progress, and I hope what people don’t know is how absurdly insecure I have felt this entire year to put out any music at all — and my entire 22 years on this fucking earth,” she says. “All I want to do in life is what Frank Ocean did for me as a kid… Because the reason I love music is that level of communication, and that’s also why I’m obsessed with any single person that is even willing to hear me talk. Like, I’m fans of my fans. I’m like, ‘You don’t get it. I’m not doing it for you to consume so you’re like, ‘Yay, I’m a consumer!’ I’m doing this to make friends. You’re my friend. Like please, Jesus Christ, I need to be less lonely. That’s why I’m doing this!”
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