‘Emily in Paris’ Actor Ashley Park Had a Hilarious Interaction With a Fan After Accidentally Cutting Him Off
The first season of Netflix‘s Emily in Paris introduced us to Mindy Chen (played by Ashley Park), Emily’s new best friend and fellow expatriate in Paris. When Mindy and Emily first meet, she works as an au pair in Paris, despite being the millionaire heiress to her father’s fastener manufacturing company.
When Mindy admits that she failed at Chinese Pop Star and has been hiding ever since, Emily tells her, she should follow her passion and get back to singing.
Park never thought her work on Emily in Paris would get her noticed, but her role as a musician and Emily’s best friend has gotten much attention. Now, she has fans all over the globe singing her viral tune from the show.
Ashley Park’s ‘Mon Soleil’ in ‘Emily Paris’ was an original song
Since meeting Emily, Mindy has been wowing audiences all over Paris with her performances, including renditions of Édith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose,” BTS’ “Dynamite,” and her own viral hit, “Mon Soleil.” According to an interview Park had with Vogue, she wrote “Mon Soleil” alongside her good friend and Grammy-winning lyricist Freddy Wexler.
The actor said the song has “Stevie Wonder vibes, but French, romantic, and very pop,” adding that it represents a pivotal period in the plot because the characters are going through something.
Emily in Paris Season 3 sees Mindy’s rise to fame as a singer with her renditions of “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa and “Shallow” by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Singing has had a significant role in Mindy’s development, from the Ponts des Arts Bridge to La Trompette Bleue.
Ashley Park had a hilarious interaction with a fan she cut off
Appearing on Good Morning America, Park told the story of an interesting encounter she had with a fan, saying,
“One night, I was driving home in LA, and I was not being a very good driver. I didn’t check my blind spot because there was no one around me, and I cut somebody off. I was like, ‘Oh gosh, no, no.’ And this man drove next to me, and we were at a stoplight, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to have to apologize.’ So I rolled down the windows, and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry.’ And then I see his window come down, and all of a sudden, he was like, ‘Are you, Mindy?”
According to Park, the fan seemed completely unphased by her cutting him off, and before they drove off, the fan started singing her song “Mon Soleil” to her.
Ashley Park didn’t know singing would be so prominent in ‘Emily in Paris’
Park had already established herself on Broadway before being cast in Emily in Paris. The actor played Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls the Musical, for which she received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations.
She also played Tuptim in The King and I and had parts in Mamma Mia!, Sunday in the Park with George, and most recently, Grand Horizons. Park had a hunch that Darren Star, creator of the Emily in Paris series on Netflix, would invite her to contribute her singing talents to the show.
She didn’t anticipate singing as much as she has for the show, though, as she revealed in the interview with Good Morning America. “When I was cast as Mindy, it wasn’t written that the character sings,” she said.
“I remember Darren Star called me after our first table read … I picked up, and he asked, ‘Would you be OK if we had your character sing?’ And I really thought it was going to be like Mindy goes to a karaoke bar, she sings happy birthday. I had no idea it would be this kind of a trajectory of a story arc.”
In January 2022, Netflix announced they would renew Emily in Paris for a third and fourth season, so we will get to see Park continue to portray Mindy a little longer!
