Bravo’s ‘Real Girlfriends in Paris’: Emily Gorelik Explains Why Anya Firestone Really Is France’s ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ [Exclusive]
Anya Firestone from Bravo‘s Real Girlfriends in Paris may be the closest thing France has to a real-life Marvelous Mrs. Maisel because she nurtures her younger American friends, offers insightful dating advice, and is even pretty handy with a wrench.
She manages to seamlessly pull all of this off while rocking the latest couture, peppering her delivery with quick-witted quips, while whipping up an American Thanksgiving for five.
Anya basically ‘adopted’ Emily when she arrived in Paris
Gorelik has known Firestone the longest from the friend group and joked about how Firestone “adopted” her. “I was very lucky enough to have met Anya way before the show,” Gorelik recalled to Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “I was pretty much the lone little East Coast Jew from the States, and I met Anya and she adopted me [laughs]! We went to dinner here and we just clicked automatically.”
The other young women in the cast came together pretty easily too. “It’s a very big city, but it’s really not that big, especially the expat young American community here,” she added. “So we were able to meet each other through the group and we got very lucky.”
Being called ‘Mrs. Maisel’ is nothing new for Anya Firestone
Firestone leans into the whole Mrs. Maisel designation. “I’ve gotten that I’m like the love child of Emily in Paris and Mrs. Maisel and Salvador Dali. It’s just in my nature. I do it with my own mom,” Firestone said about mothering everyone in her life. “And I do it with my fiancé. I like to take care of people. But I have been [in Paris] on and off for a decade. I’ve had to be the au pair and the English teacher and the student and the graduate student and the entrepreneur.”
“I’ve had as many types of visas as you can imagine, including the credit card,” she joked. “And honestly, I want to help these girls because I’ve been through things that they’ve been through. It’s like, ‘Oh, a Frenchman is not calling me back.’ Yeah, that’s because it’s a man. It’s not because he’s French! But the French also has stereotypes of American women.”
“Also I love to host dinner parties for my work,” she added. “I create these events and experiences, but I love to do it on a personal level. When I lived here a decade ago, I used to throw costume parties for like 70 people. I had all these strangers in my apartment. I was cool back in the day [laughs].”
How will Anya and Emily’s stories play out on ‘Real Girlfriends in Paris’?
Like Mrs. Maisel, Firestone faces some career challenges this season of Real Girlfriends in Paris. “I have dedicated myself to really focus on building my business in Paris,” she said. “And so what you will see this season is firstly the chutzpah, as we say in New York, that it takes to really try something that is not even a normal thing in the United States and to try it in France.”
“And to try to get your business idea out there in front of people in art and in fashion and gastronomy,” she continued. “I mean, Paris is the city of high culture. And I am an American woman telling the French what to do with their culture. So that takes the chutzpah. And of course, things don’t come easily. So, I think that will be fun to see. Basically the challenges, the successes, and everything in between, trying to make a business in an entrepreneurial way in Paris.”
Gorelik will be caught between striking out on her own versus bringing the family business to Paris. “You’re going to see the entire conflict play out,” she teased. “It’s between battling opportunities that come to you, trying to discover the world and the industry and what you actually want to do as a 22-year-old living in Paris versus something that you have been telling yourself your whole life.”
“Something that you sort of feel obligated for your family’s sake, but also is a passion,” she added. Viewers will see, “How I navigate exploring the fashion world, never having experienced it before, while also luckily somehow being able to bring in interior design as well.”
Two episodes of Real Girlfriends in Paris premiere on Monday, Sept. 5 at 9:15 p.m. on Bravo.
